


Defective

by Ravenclaw_trashmaster



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, BAMF Minerva McGonagall, Bad Parenting, Black Hermione Granger, Bonding, Child Abuse, Child Neglect, Confused McGonagall, Cunning Harry, Depression, Fluff, Gen, Good Slytherins, Hermione Granger Bashing, Hogwarts Express, Hufflepuff Harry Potter, Independent Harry Potter, Insecure Teenagers, Manipulation, Manipulative Albus Dumbledore, Manipulative Harry Potter, Mastermind Daphne Greengrass, Original Character(s), Parselmouth Harry Potter, Prophecy, Runaway Harry, Sassy Harry Potter, Self-Harm, Smart Harry Potter, Snake familiar, no beta we die like men
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-17
Updated: 2019-06-01
Packaged: 2019-10-30 03:53:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 23,647
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17821373
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ravenclaw_trashmaster/pseuds/Ravenclaw_trashmaster
Summary: Albus had his plans perfectly laid out, he would use his perfectly molded hero to defeat his ultimate dark creation in a war of his design and he would be the leader of it all, cementing his position in charge of Wizarding Britain and giving him the power he needs to create a world of his design.He just needed The Boy Who Lived to complete them.What he didn't count on was the effect of the situation he put the boy in on the figure he wanted to mold his perfect hero out of and instead of a naive little boy who was eager to please and live up to expectations he got Harry Potter.





	1. All I'm Asking for is a Little Bit of Faith

**Author's Note:**

> DISCLAIMER: generic disclaimer, I don't own Harry Potter (duh) and am making no profit off this work (again duh) 
> 
> This fic contains self-harm, abuse and manipulative relationships just in the summary and first chapter, it's gonna get worse so please be responsible with what you are reading. The tags are updated with each chapter so read them and any notes at the beginning of the chapters for trigger warnings.
> 
> I'd like to think this gives a pretty accurate representation of some peoples experience with mental illness and self harm because it reflects mine pretty well as well as my friends more extreme experience with this stuff. It is in no way meant to belittle these issues and I hope it doesn't offend anyone reading this.
> 
> There are too many fics that i have taken inspiration from to list or for me to remember so if something is similar to another story you have read then that's probably for a reason, I've tried to make it pretty original though, I don't mean to be seen as copying.
> 
> Thank you, Enjoy!

Harry fumbled around in his cupboard for the torch he kept under his pillow so he could cast some dim light around the only small space he could call his own. He flipped the switch and bashed the handle on the thin mattress he lay on to stop it from flickering and then started to dig around at the foot of the cupboard. He said mattress, it was a stack of old yoga mats from when his aunt looked young naturally and not from the Botox she used the money she got for housing Harry to get, either way it was good enough to hide his things under. For Christmas Dudley had gotten the newest beats and a new phone so Harry had stolen his old, unwanted gear before it got broken in the room of forgotten junk (Dudley’s second bedroom), Harry had stashed the small screen and headphones under the mats along with the spare razors his aunt had stashed in the bathroom.

He quietly plugged in the headphones (he never bothered to use the wireless settings) and shuffled the YouTube playlist he had created to drown out the silence and turning up the volume on Look Out Sunshine by The Fratellis before he unboxed a new set of razors and took one to the skin at his wrists.

Pressing down lightly on the scarred flesh he drifted into the music and the pain.

_“…I’ll sing my own song how does it go, look out sunshine, is the punchline, no one gets you anymore”._

He hissed at the second of pain before the numbness and the warmth of his blood came trickling into his system. It wasn’t a deep cut, just a quick slash to start followed by two more of the same sort, the quick succession of wounds drowning the inevitable panic and misery of the night with a shallow pleasure that subsided as the blood flow slowed and stopped and the songs began to filter back in as an English cover of a Japanese TV opening.

_“…if tears spring to break free, I’ll crush that cry with the resolve now swelling in me, I hold the message that’s our rising hope”._

Deeper. He had to cut deeper, then he would feel better. Continuing the cycle he cut deeper into the once smooth flesh and letting the pleasure overwhelm him again and again until he couldn’t hold the blade.

_“We took a walk that night but it wasn’t the same, we had a fight on the promenade out in the rain”._

Couldn’t he just stay drowning in this lucid state of bliss he lived for?

_“…she couldn’t scream as I held her close I swore I’d never let her go, tell me what you want to know, oh come on, oh come on, oh come on”._

No. No, Aunt Petunia would drop off the soup that was supposed to last him the day and would extend his punishment from the zoo if she saw the dried blood on his arms and around him.

_“Monday you could fall apart, Tuesday Wednesday break my heart, Thursday doesn’t even start”._

He grabbed the bloody tea towel he had been given to nurse his wounds so many years ago when the injuries had only been from the beatings, that was before it had all become too much and he turned to the pleasure in the pain to keep him sane. He slowly blotted the cuts, applying pressure and willing them to close.

That always seemed to work for some reason, it was the only time he could control the freakish ability he longed to bleed out of his system. Maybe then they would let him out, when he was normal, maybe then they would treat him a bit more like the treated Dudley.

Like a family.

_“…watch me take the wheel like you, not feel like you, act like nothing’s real like you”._

And like that, they were gone and he was back in the dimly lit hole he called home. No, not home.

Hell.

_“You need a taste of your own medicine”._

Harry put the rag back in the corner and tucked the blades back under the bed along with the now silenced phone and headset, said one last goodbye to the pleasure of the night before the panic attacks and depressive episodes took over in the suffocating dark, turned the torch off and rolled over, ready to accept the torture hiding in the darkness of his mind.

 

. ~~Defective~~.

 

A week later, Harry woke the next day to the light creeping in under the doorway and the shrill voice of Petunia telling him to get up, get up, get up. There were chores to do and he had been lazing around all week.

He exited the cupboard and started on breakfast, grilling the bacon exactly the way his uncle liked it, eating his dry piece of toast over the sink and immediately getting to work in the garden, pulling out the weeds, pruning the hedges, watering the roses and then going back inside to do the cleaning.

By lunch he had hoovered, mopped, beaten out the rugs, polished the silverware, dusted, cleaned the shoes and done three lots of washing as well as preparing and cooking lunch.

When the post fell through the letterbox the Dursleys were in the middle of their meal, and Harry, who was doing the washing up, had to go and get it.

When he got there, there were a few late birthday cards, a bill or two and, surprisingly, one for Harry.

Not even bothering to try to take it to the table because he knew it would be taken away from him, he slipped it under the door to his cupboard and re-entered the kitchen to hand the rest of the post to his uncle and return to his chores. He would read the letter when he was done.

Two hours later, Harry had finished all of his chores and was having his work inspected by his aunt to see if he could go out. Harry never actually told them where he was going, that just opened himself up to his cousins bullying, and his so called guardians never cared where he was so long as he did his chores and was back before seven. Harry was surprised that Dudley and his gang never found him though, he was always doing his chores as fast as possible so he could go to the library.

It was a release, burying himself in books. The only distraction from his life that actually worked besides cutting open his wrists. He always had to play down his knowledge at school because for every percentage better than Dudley he did in tests he got another lashing from Vernon’s cane, yet despite what everyone thought, Harry was not stupid, in any way. He knew when someone was manipulating him, or acting, or when he was in danger and what kind of person people were. In other words, Harry was street smart as well as book smart. While the people on Child Genius were reciting tube stations and doing trigonometry as mental maths, Harry was out surviving on his own in the world.

Well, as much as he could as an abused, neglected and self-harming ten year old but you get the point.

As soon as his aunt had verified that he had done his work to an acceptable standard (which was actually to a five star standard he was just underappreciated) Harry dug around in his cupboard for his shoes, rucksack and the letter he had received earlier that day and headed out of the door and into town.

He reached the library and was greeted by one of the librarians he saw there regularly, seemingly the only people who would actually have a conversation with him, Dudley and his gang had scared off everyone else, and then he made his way to his regular seat and took out the letter.

It was strange even before he had opened it,

  1. It was addressed to him
  2. It was handwritten (who did that any more seriously)
  3. It was addressed specifically to the cupboard under the stairs
  4. It was on parchment with a wax seal instead of one of the regular lick and stick envelopes



When he opened it, it got weirder

_HOGWARTS SCHOOL of WITCHCRAFT and WIZARDRY_

_Headmaster: Albus Dumbledore_

_(Order of Merlin, First Class, Grand Sorc., Chf. Warlock,_

_Supreme Mugwump, International Confed. of Wizards)_

_Dear Mr Potter,_

_We are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Please find enclosed a list of all necessary books and equipment._

_Term begins on 1 September. We await your owl by no later than 31 July._

_Yours sincerely,_

_Minerva McGonagall_

_Deputy Headmistress_

“Hogwarts? Witchcraft and Wizardry? Owl?” Harry asked aloud. He’d think it was a prank by Dudley but honestly Harry didn’t think Dudley would be smart enough to make up the phrase ‘supreme mugwump’. Other than ‘seriously emerald green ink?’ he didn’t know what to think.

“Oh gosh, Harry! Is that your letter from Hogwarts?” Harry looked up to see a rather excited Mrs Figg who lived across the road from the Dursleys.

Mrs Figg was the woman who looked after Harry whenever the Dursleys were excluding him from a trip or just wanted him out of the way. This confused Harry even more, Mrs Figg was old and boring and smelled of cats and cabbage and spent his entire visits pretending to be watching TV when she was actually watching him like a hawk (she never stopped Harry from playing the piano in her living room though so he guessed it was alright). Why would Mrs Figg know anything about witches and warlocks and magical schools?

Mrs Figg chuckled at the look on his face “Oh Harry, come on I’ll help you send your letter saying you have accepted your place”. She took Harry’s hand and started to pack up his books before he spoke up.

“But Mrs Figg, I don’t know anything about this school, why would I blindly accept my position. For all I know this is just some joke that you’ve been roped into.”

It wasn’t that Harry didn’t believe in magic, now that it had been given a name the strange things like the vanishing glass and his cuts closing on command as well as so many other things that had happened made so much more sense but he couldn’t help but feel that it was a bit strange that he was just expected to make this decision with no sort of explanation even with someone who seemed to be able to answer at least some of his questions. Speaking of questions if Mrs Figg knew that he had been showing signs of magic then why hadn’t she approached him before and just what else did she know about what happened inside the Dursley’s house?

“Well Harry surely you want to know about magic? Why wouldn’t you?” Harry could tell that she hadn’t counted on him being this sceptical of what was going on, she was starting to panic and that made Harry suspicious. Someone was definitely pulling the strings behind the scenes and they were trying to manipulate him. Harry was willing to bet it was this _‘supreme mugwump’_ headmaster at the school, it seemed like all those titles were put there to intimidate or maybe create a sense of trust without meeting him and Harry wasn’t falling for it.

Harry did some quick thinking and decided on a plan.

“Maybe if I could talk to the deputy headmistress or the headmaster they could explain a bit and then I could make my decision?” Harry asked innocently, still not having moved from his seat or let Mrs Figg move any of his belongings.

“Well I’m sure that they’re very busy dear”

“Then maybe another teacher?”

“Come now dear we shouldn’t disturb their work”

“It’s just one conversation, how disruptive can it be?”

“Well I suppose we can have one conversation with Professor McGonagall”

“Thank you”

“Come along now, we should do this quickly”

 

. ~~Defective~~.

 

Minerva McGonagall stepped through a very flustered Arabella Figg’s floo into her living room after a rather longwinded and really rather irritating conversation about how explaining magic and Hogwarts to Harry Potter wasn’t disrupting her work at all because her job at the moment was to do just that with all the muggleborns. Arabella seemed to think that Dumbledore wanted Harry to know nothing of magic until the last moment but that was absurd so Minerva insisted that she come through and tell Harry about the school and take him shopping for supplies so that he could have a proper introduction to the Wizarding World.

However when Harry was sent into the room as Arabella went to make tea he was not what she expected at all.

Instead of a bright eyed boy, bubbling over with questions and excitement, the spitting image of his father there was a rather annoyed boy who was looking her up and down as if he was trying to tell if she was safe to be around and he looked nothing like how she expected him.

His Black heritage had really come out in his appearance; his hair was a sleek black, short at the sides and fading up until it was long and floppy at the front forming a fringe over his scar; he had prominent cheekbones giving him the aristocratic Black look through face shape although he had his mother’s bright green eyes and his father’s sharp jawline. While his face surprised her it was something else entirely that horrified her. He was skinny, too skinny and shifty as he sat down as if he was waiting to be told he was doing something wrong, waiting to be yelled at or have to dodge a sudden attack. His eyes held no hint of youth and instead were impossibly tired and he was clearly suspicious of the situation he was in. Minerva could feel her eyes dampen as she wondered what could do such a thing to a boy.

“What have those people done to you?” she asked quietly behind a sob and his eyes widened at the sight of her reaction. She slowly reached her hand out halfway towards him, knowing that she would need permission to touch him.

It was at this moment he decided that she was trustworthy and he moved to get her some tissues from a side table and he chose to make the first move in the conversation.

“Um, hello, thank you for coming to talk to me, you see, I was a bit worried about the school,” he shifted and looked around to make sure the houses inhabitant wasn’t coming back and then smiled when he saw that her eyes had dried, “Well I got my letter and I didn’t really understand what was happening, but then Mrs Figg tried to get me to send off a letter saying that I accepted my place, but I didn’t want to make an uninformed decision, but when I said that and requested that I could talk with you or the headmaster I was told that you would all be too busy and, well, it just didn’t sit quite right with me, it felt like I was being manipulated.”

Minerva was concerned by this, if a child feels uncomfortable they shouldn’t be forced to do anything. She felt the need to reassure this vulnerable boy in any way possible.

“Well, has there ever been a time when you were angry or hurt or sad and something strange has happened that no one could explain, maybe something broke or a graze healed immediately?” Harry nodded and she noticed him pulling the sleeves on his oversized jumper down over his hands more, “that was you doing magic, you’re a wizard. Hogwarts is a boarding school in Scotland that children like you go to, to learn how to control their magic and do different things with it.” Harry nodded lazily as if to say that he’d already figured that stuff out.

“We teach charms; defensive magic; transfiguration, that’s changing one thing into another; potions; history of magic; astronomy, the study of the stars; herbology, the study of magical plants and temporary flying lessons that are dropped half way through the year. In your third year you get to choose two more subjects from arithmacy, the magical use of numbers in things like spell crafting; ancient runes and warding, which is a form of protection; muggle studies, muggles are what wizards call non magical people; care of magical creatures and divination, reading the future.”

“But if you don’t offer maths and English courses then we won’t have basic qualifications and controlling our magic will have been a bit of a waste of time” Harry questioned

“Ah but you won’t need those sorts of qualifications if you want to get a job in the wizarding world” she saw the realisation that he wouldn’t have to spend his life in the muggle world and found it rather disturbing that there was quite so much joy there.

“Um Professor,”

“Yes Harry?”

“How am I a wizard, I mean, were my parents or did it just… happen?”

Minerva froze. He didn’t know about Lily and James.

“Professor?”

“Harry, what do you know about how your parents died?” she asked carefully

Harry looked down, ashamed “They were in a car crash, drunk driving…” he trailed off and Minerva stood furious.

“You live across the road, yes?” she asked sternly, shocking the boy into looking up with the sudden change in tone.

“Yes.” He said with an uncertain edge to his voice, like he was ready to bolt at any point.

“Come with me”

Minerva took the boys hand and quickly called goodbye to Arabella who still hadn’t come back with tea for some reason and then lead him across the road. She noticed that even when she held his hand he had his sleeves bunched in his hands to keep them from slipping down his arms and wondered why he did so.

As Minerva knocked on the door she felt his hand tense in hers, as she heard voices in the hallway she let go and put her hand oh Harry’s shoulder instead. The door was opened and she found herself glaring at a horse faced woman who had a shocked look on her face and Minerva forced her way through the door and into the living room, sitting Harry next to her. She looked sternly into the face of someone she honestly would have believed got stuck mid animagus transformation and was now half walrus.

“My name is Minerva McGonagall, deputy headmistress of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry,” the woman gasped in horror but Minerva continued as if without interruption. “I am horrified at your lack of consideration and incredible impoliteness towards your nephew”

She was again interrupted but this time by the walrus, “LACK OF CONSIDERATION” he boomed “WE HAVE TAKEN THAT BOY INTO OUR HOME, FED AND CLOTHED HIM” Minerva scoffed at that “EVEN WITH HIS FREAKISH WAYS AND HOW HE HAS HURT OUR SON WITH ALL HIS LITTLE ‘INCIDENTS’. HE HAS ALWAYS HAD ANYTHING HE COULD WANT, LACK OF COSIDERATION, YOU WOULDN’T KNOW THAT ID IT BIT YOU ON THE ARSE”

Minerva hit him with a silencing charm to stop him from continuing his rant and glared at him saying in a terrifying voice, “A car crash.”

And Vernon stopped trying so shout and Petunia stiffened even further than before.

“James and Lily Potter did _not_ die in a car crash”

Harry didn’t make a sound but she knew he was listening because he straightened out from his curled position almost immediately.

“They we-“ she tried to start

“They were _blown up_ by a _madman_ ” Petunia spat and Minerva shot out another silencing charm so strong Petunia was knocked backwards.

“They were war heroes who sacrificed their lives to end a century long battle. They were cruelly murdered when protecting their son.”

Minerva was furious but manged to drag her glair away from the horse and the walrus so that she could explain to the very confused boy by her.

“Harry your parent fought in a war against some very bad people, when their leader came to kill you and your family they sacrificed themselves so that their magic would act as a barrier to shield you. When they did this the barrier was so strong it caused the curse meant to kill you to rebound back at your attacker killing him instead. Harry, you are famous in the wizarding world for being the only person to ever have survived the killing curse and for killing the dark lord in doing so.”

“And they said that they were killed in a car crash” Harry turned to his family as he said it and he surprised Minerva by not looking at all angry, just sad beyond belief. He slowly stood and was almost out of the room when he asked “How can I get my school supplies?”

“I’ll come back tomorrow” Minerva said softly to the boy who suddenly looked so much younger than he did a few minutes ago.

Harry nodded and saw her to the door, “Oh, professor?” he asked “Can you do something to stop them from bothering me for a while, I just want to be alone at the moment but I feel like that won’t be allowed.”

McGonagall couldn’t resist the big eyes that stared into hers and she cast a long lasting incarcerus on the pair of them and one on the front door so the same happened to Dudley when he came home, it might not have been what he had in mind but she had a feeling he would find it far more satisfying, it definitely was for her. 

“Just make sure you eat, okay?” She said, concerned about how much he was being fed anyway 

Harry nodded and then closed the door, cutting himself off from her once again.

 

. ~~Defective~~.

 

Harry trudged away from the door, grumbling about him being the one that does all the cooking anyway and opened the door to his cupboard, slinking inside and drowning himself in darkness.

He fished out his torch, pushed the headphones on and turned up the music and produced a fresh razor.

He skipped the first three strikes and went straight for the deep gashes, the warm blood running over his fingers and dripping off like a small stream over a bank of pebbles, the bliss drowning out the suffocating sense of loss.

_“Loco, maniac, sick bitch, psychopath” ~~~~_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Songs In Order Of Appearance Chap 1  
> Title:Mantra - Bring Me The Horizon  
> Look Out Sunshine - The Fratellis  
> Rising Hope English Cover - AmaLee  
> Jenny Was A Friend Of Mine - The Killers (2x)  
> Friday I'm In Love - The Cure  
> Medicine - Bring Me The Horizon (2x)  
> I'm Gonna Show You Crazy - Bebe Rexha


	2. I Wish It Was Me You Chose

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> McGonagall takes Harry to Diagon Ally where he makes friends and forms a plan.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TRIGGER WARNING: self-harm, mention of verbal abuse and some not-really-that-graphic-at-all imagery.
> 
> Please note that the chapter titles have no relevance to what happens they are just emo song lyrics.
> 
> Also I'm currently on half term so I am actually updating but it will slow down so I will make the most of my free time and get as much as i can done this week.

_“I’m begging to be free, she takes it all so goddam seriously”_

He cut deeper, deeper than before but not quite deep enough to leave any tell-tail signs of what he was doing -He’d read about nerve damage and the effects it could have, but depending on the ones that are cut you can either have twitching and in extreme cases paralysis in the hand and arm, or you can have constant burning and increased sensitivity- he didn’t need that on top of everything else.

Deeper, longer, bloodier than ever before and yet it didn’t drown out his newly resurfaced grief.

‘Accept it, they’ll never love you, this is proof, nobody wants you’ a small voice in his head was repeating a little manta.

‘Don’t bother cleaning up, just let it go, fade into the numbness, they won’t care’ and for the first time Harry didn’t just want to use the pain to hide from the world, he wanted to use the pain to leave the world. Forever, dead.

‘But I have a way out, if I go to Hogwarts I can be normal with all the other kids, I could have friends, people who love me.’ There was that longing again to pull him away from the brink and back into the world of the living

_“Well they said she was burned out, I just laughed and said, come on, she’s not burnt, she’s just gone”_

Harry let himself continue bleeding for a while longer, he just wanted to sleep and he knew this would make him tired. Just waiting to drift off Harry focused on the music

_“It’s a million o’ clock, too hot to sleep, a rotten taste in my mouth and my eyes are deep, there’s nothing much really going on up here, I’m holding on for dear life and one more beer”_

Finally drowsy after who knows how long Harry began to clean himself up a bit stashing the blades but keeping out the music to lull himself into oblivion with.

_“And there was nothing that she wouldn’t give, just to trust him, with her nightmares, she’s running, she’s running, just to trust him, he’s got a big smile, fake news, just run for cover you’ve got nothing left to lose.”_

 

. ~~Defective~~.

When Harry woke up he saw that it was early as normal but he just couldn’t quite bring himself to get out of bed, he knew that professor McGonagall was coming again today but it still didn’t motivate him. He couldn’t bring himself to care that she would find him with scarred and bloody arms in a cupboard under the stairs, the little that the shame did affect him just made him want to hide away longer. He didn’t care that his relatives were probably still tied up and would starve if he just left them there, he didn’t care about what would happen to him when the spell wore off, or if it even would wear off.

Eventually it was his need to go to the toilet and the knowledge that no one would be able to stop him that had Harry dragging himself out of bed and into the hallway.

What he saw there surprised him, the vision of his cousin tied up, wriggling and whimpering on the floor just inside the front door and his uncle lying in the middle of the doorway to the living room. The silencing charm had clearly worn off because Vernon started threatening Harry but even his roaring couldn’t bring Harry to pay attention to what he was actually saying. Instead Harry traipsed up the stairs into the bathroom, he looked down at his arms that were still bloody from the night before and decided that since there was no one to tell him not to he would have a shower.

The hot water stung against the fresh wounds as Harry scrubbed at the congealed blood but none of the wounds reopened, he guessed that was the perks of magic. As his body warmed under the spray he pondered where the hell he would get all of his school supplies and once gain wondered if this was all some elaborate plan to humiliate him, maybe on one of those prank TV shows he knew Dudley found so entertaining. He thought he might die if it was, he finally had a hope of getting out of the hell hole he was dumped in and he didn’t want to give that up.

Harry washed his hair with his cousin’s shampoo and conditioner, he was normally only been able to use water, and even used the elusive body wash that he hadn’t even been able to touch. He got out of the shower and used a large fluffy towel that was supposed to be for guests to dry off and decided to raid Dudley’s wardrobe for a new, less bloody jumper and a functioning belt.

Once he was dressed Harry walked quietly down the stairs and into the kitchen and started on breakfast, cooking the bacon just how his uncle liked it and grilling the toast so it wasn’t burnt to a crisp like his normally was, he then came out of the kitchen into the hallway and ate his food right in front of his family and taking amusement from their outrage at his disobedience and blocking out the slurs they threw at him, soon no one would call him freak again.

Harry finished breakfast just as there was a knock on the door and, having nothing to clear up and nothing to collect before he left, he simply stepped over Dudley’s body and walked out of the door, leaving the Dursleys on the floor in the hall to starve.

Professor McGonagall took Harry to Mrs Figg’s house and informed him of how to use the floo network and told him to go to a place called The Leaky Cauldron and she would go straight after him so he wouldn’t be alone for long. What she didn’t tell him though, was how hard it is to land on your feet as a first time traveller. Harry didn’t just stumble, he fell, face first, onto the floor, drawing attention from everyone. But as Harry got up to wait for Professor McGonagall it, somehow, got worse.

“Bless my soul, it’s Harry Potter” said the barman and just as Professor McGonagall stepped out of the floo every patron of the bar pounced on him. Harry was grabbed and pulled and hit and bashed on all sorts of things and at some point he felt the blood start to trickle down his arm again. It seemed to go on for an age before McGonagall yelled at everyone to stop and the noise died down.

Shaking with fear, as soon as he saw a clear path to a toilet Harry bolted. He needed to get his arm wrapped up so that it didn’t become obvious what had happened, Harry was just glad that today’s jumper was black.

Harry locked himself in a cubicle and pushed up his sleeves to survey the damage, a few of the newer horizontal cuts and one fresh vertical one had opened up on his arm, Harry was suddenly glad that he only cut his non-dominant arm (Harry could never keep his right arm steady enough so the cuts were horrible and didn’t do anything to help when he needed it. He never used his right hand regardless of what his aunt did, that was one of the only things Harry didn’t comply with, his handwriting was atrocious with his right hand) that way it wouldn’t make much difference to what he was going today.

Harry grabbed as much tissue as possible, scrunching it up, pressing it all along his forearm and creating a row of tissue balls along his arm before wrapping them in more paper so that they were compressed and put pressure on the wound and then repeated the process another two times before pulling down the baggy sleeves of his jumper and washing the blood off his hands.

As he excited the bathroom he was met by McGonagall and a subdued bar and he was guided out of the back entrance and into a blocked off ally way. McGonagall tapped on a series of bricks and the wall melted away into an archway leading into a place McGonagall said was called Diagon Ally. She led him down the long winding road to a towering building called Gringotts which was explained as a wizarding bank run by goblins.

When they got to the front of the queue for the teller McGonagall explained that Harry didn’t have his key but he needed to access his vault so they were taken through to a room where Harry had to give a few drops of his blood so he could verify that he was who he said and then his key was transported from wherever it was to Harry’s hand so he could get to his vault. Harry was fascinated by the tunnels and the vaults and the currency system and was delighted by the fact that he had money of his own now. He was definitely going to get some clothes of his own and some new glasses, things were already looking up.

When they excited the bank McGonagall said she was going to get his books and other academic supplies for him and showed him where the wand makers’ shop was and where he could get his robes so they could be done quickly and he didn’t have to do the boring stuff.

The wand shop was quite busy at the time so he chose to go into Madam Malkin’s Robes for All Occasions. As he entered two boys stumbled into him and glared at him once they had seen his scar, their fathers’ brushing past and rushing off, acting as if Harry didn’t exist.

Once they were gone there was just Harry and three other kids his age in the shop, one boy and two girls.

The boy looked Italian, with a deep natural tan and a strong brow and jawline, he had hair almost exactly like Harry’s; short at the sides, long and floppy on top although where Harry’s fell forwards as a fringe the boys was pushed back, accentuating his face shape. He was tall for his age and slim but Harry could see the definition of muscle on his arms. His hazel eyes appraised Harry much in the same way as Harry was doing to him.

The girls were also watching Harry. They were about the same height and were both quite pale but that was where the similarities ended. One had long, platinum blonde hair, pulled back into two French braids that hung down to her waist and the other had rich auburn hair that fell just below her shoulder blades with a slight wave in it, pulled back from her face by a clip. The blonde had high cheekbones, bright blue eyes and a straight nose, the red-head had a rounder face, grey eyes and a button nose dotted with faint freckles.

It was the boy who spoke up first “Hey, sorry about them, they’re blood purists just ignore it” Harry gave him a confused look “From the war,” the boy added as if that explained everything.

“Um, I was raised by muggles, I don’t really know what you’re talking about.” Harry responded and their eyes all widened.

“You know about the war right?” the blonde girl asked

“Not really, I’ve been kept completely in the dark, until yesterday I thought my parents died in a car crash because they were drunk” Harry grimaced and looked away

“That’s awful. Why would anyone lie like that?” it was the red-head who spoke up this time

Harry just stayed quiet and rubbed his arm where the cuts had reopened.

The boy started to explain for Harry, “Well, as a basic rundown of the war there was the light and the dark, the light were fighting for integration with muggle-born children and families and the dark were fighting for their exclusion and for the wizarding and muggle worlds to be completely cut off from one another. The guys that just stormed out of here, Crabbe and Goyle, fought for the dark so they don’t like you because you killed their leader. That’s why they were such arseholes just now, their sons Vince and Greg are going to be first years with us.”

“Oh joy.” Harry said, voice dripping with sarcasm, making the other three laugh.

“I’m Blaise Zabini,” the boy said, he then gestured to the blonde, “Daphne Greengrass” and then to the red-head, “Tracy Davis”.

“Harry Potter” Harry replied, unnecessarily.

Daphne giggled “We know”

“The um,” Blaise gestured to his forehead “It’s a dead giveaway.”

Tracy sighed “It’s called a scar Blaise, it’s not that hard,” she turned to Harry, “they’re purebloods so they’ve been force fed all the stories about you. I’m going to say they’re probably freaking out inside at the moment” her judgement was proved correct by the blush that appeared on Daphne’s cheeks and Blaise looking away awkwardly.

Harry nodded his understanding “what are you then?” he asked Tracy.

“Half-blood, my mum was a muggle so I was always told the muggle fairy tales, I didn’t really know much about you until I did magic for the first time and my dad gave me the low-down.”

Harry nodded again and a woman came out from the back of the store and told them to stand on a small podium each so they could be measured for their robes.

It was all quite quick from there, they paid for the robes and then all decided to get their wands together now that the shop had cleared out.

Upon entering they were met by an old man with wild hair that seemed to reflect his wild personality.

“Ah, Miss Greengrass, Miss Davis, Mr Zabini and Mr Potter, I have to say, while I expected each of you it was not as a group. Anyhow, let’s find you all your wands.”

Blaise and Daphne had a successful wand on the first try and it took Tracy three tries however Harry got to ten and seemed to have truly stumped the old wand-maker after he rejected a holly and phoenix feather wand that Ollivander seemed determined would work and his friends had a look of disbelief on their faces.

After another five minutes of searching and confused looks the man seemed to finally have an idea and go running into the back of his shop and coming back with another wand. The wand shifted from the deep grey-brown of ivy wood to a dark, silvery blue in the flickering of the candle light and it was carved to look like snake scales.

“It’s said to contain the hair of Helena Ravenclaw herself, the legend surrounding the wand said that Helena took up the art of wand-craft before she disappeared and this is the only one she made. Gave it to her local professional wandmaker and it’s never had an owner.” The man suddenly looked older and sorrowful as he looked at the wand before looking up at Harry “Go on then, try it out”

As Harry picked up the wand it started to adjust itself to the perfect size for Harry’s hand and a small silver snake burrowed its way out of the wood and wrapped itself around the handle as a kind of grip so that Harry could hold it without it slipping or being uncomfortable. The three kids around him all stared in awe at the wand and how beautiful it was with the intricate detailing and the way it seemed to sparkle as the colour changed. Even Ollivander was enthralled as the wand he had owned all his life finally bonded with a child, the boy the prophecy that came with the legend slipping his mind completely, the prophecy of sorrow forgotten in the tides of childish joy and wonder.

“How much do I owe you sir?” Harry’s small voice dislodging the wandmaker from his thoughts.

“Ah yes, seven galleons please Mr Potter” Ollivander replied, visibly pulling himself together and then bidding the group of children goodbye.

As the quad walked out of the shop Ollivander called after them “May your wands serve you well, children.”

 

. ~~Defective~~.

 

Harry met Professor McGonagall in Florian Fortescue’s Ice Cream Parlour when she took him to the pet shop to get him an owl to take to school with him, however as he entered the shop harry felt a strange pull towards the other animals.

At the back of the shop, past the owls and cats and rats and toads, there were snakes. Harry had known for a while that he could talk to snakes, he had also figured out very quickly that it would be viewed as dark with the Wizarding World’s aversion to the creatures but seeing the way that these ones were being kept hurt. There was one snake though, which was being very vocal about its pain and Harry felt the need to help it out.

When the store owner found Harry by the snakes Harry could tell he was surprised, but the expression on his face when Harry became angry was priceless.

“The way you are treating them is atrocious. Snakes need to move around, have physical contact with other beings, as well as an individual and regulated climate for them to thrive. They’re in pain and they’re sick and you do nothing to help them.”

“How, how do you know?” the keeper asked, clearly flustered.

“The way they coil in on themselves and stick to the corners of the cages, their hostility towards humans, the uneven colouration on their scales, the fact you’re keeping them all in the same conditions. This one,” Harry gestured to a beautiful blue snake “A Blue Sri Lankan Pit Viper can change its length and girth at will to suit the situation but when they aren’t hunting they should be twice this size. She is an adult so she won’t have been stunted unless you’ve had her like this for over three years but her bones are being slowly compressed and she will die if it continues”

Harry’s face became sad “I can feel her pain in my soul, it’s like she’s calling out to me for help”

McGonagall, who had arrived mid-way through Harry’s rant, gasped. “How much for the snake?” she asked. Apparently Harry had said the right thing to stop anyone from finding out he could understand what the snake was saying, there must be important magical bonds between animals and humans.

“You say you can feel it?” the keeper asked Harry

“Yes”

“Then it’s free, can’t separate a familiar from its master”

The keeper promptly unlocked the cage and retreated as the beautiful snake stretched out to its full length and then back down to a more manageable state before sliding up Harry’s left arm under his jumper and poking out at the neck wrapping itself around Harry’s shoulders.

McGonagall then quickly picked up Harry’s school robes and gave him an outer cloak to wear to keep the snake hidden and then they went back to The Leaky Cauldron so that Harry could get back to the Dursleys for four o’clock.

 

. ~~Defective~~.

 

When Harry was back at privet drive and McGonagall was gone, he stepped inside to find no family on the floor but in the kitchen eating. Harry didn’t bother to communicate with them, he just went straight to his cupboard and packed everything he owned into his school rucksack and walked back out into the afternoon, summer heat.

McGonagall had made packing easy by buying him a basic trunk and putting in all of his belongings (including the newest ‘Adaptable Climate Case’ for his familiar) and then cast a spell on it that meant it could be shrunk and enlarged with just a tap of his wand and another to make it weightless so he could, in theory, just chuck it in his bag with what little else he had and be on his way. So that's exactly what he did.

Harry walked down the road and into town but this time he passed by the library and went to the train station. From there he could use some of his left over lunch money that he saved up each day of school to get a one way ticket to Charring Cross and then he could get back into Diagon Ally.

Harry had been paying a lot of attention throughout the day, he had remembered the sequence of bricks to press to get the archway to open up and he remembered the view of London from inside the bar had been of the busy street of Charring Cross Road. And so Harry escaped hell and put his plan to improve his life into action. This way he would be in control.

This way he would be happy. ~~~~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Songs In Order Of Appearance Chap 2  
> Title: Elvis Ain't Dead - Scouting For Girls  
> Jesus Stole My Baby - The Fratellis  
> Baby Doll - The Fratellis  
> Doginabag - The Fratellis  
> Run For Cover - The Killers


	3. Do You Want To See The World A Different Way

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yay 5000+ words of character development and bonding with friends.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TRIGGER WARNING: Reference to past child neglect and I suppose some emotional parts but that really just depends on if my writing is good enough to convey any sort of emotion

Harry pulled some coins out of his bag, “One ticket up to Charing Cross please.” He said brightly to the woman behind the counter, trying to give the impression of a confident and capable boy, who knew exactly what he was doing, which technically he was just without the seemingly innocent motives that one would assume if they saw him..

“Is that a return ticket?” she asked, pausing and smiling at him as she pressed buttons on her screen.

“No, thank you.” He made sure to be polite so no one would question what was going on as they might if they saw him obviously running away.

“Then that’s £4.75 please, young man” she said, smiling down at him as if he was an angel.

Harry fished out five one pound coins, collected his change and his ticket, thanked her again and then went through the barriers to wait on the platform, the train he wanted would arrive in five minutes.

 

. ~~Defective~~.

 

It took Harry exactly 43 minutes from when he was dropped back home to get from Privet Drive back to The Leaky Cauldron, where he pulled the hood up on his jacket to avoid being recognised and wandered out to the back alley. Hitting the sequence of bricks with his wand, which he the tucked away in his bag, Harry started to walk purposefully down the street towards Gringots. He stepped inside the bank, pulled his key out of his pocket and approached the same teller as last time.

“Good afternoon,” he greeted politely. “I would like to make another withdrawal, please” he spoke confidently but politely and placed his key up on the desk. The key was examined and the goblin stepped down from the raised platform it sat on and motioned for Harry to follow.

When they were in the cart they were taken down quickly to his vault and the goblin opened it up for him but Harry didn’t enter straight away.

“What’s the value and conversion rate for each coin?”

The goblin smiled, here was a kid that wasn’t going to spend all his money at once.

“There are 29 knuts in a sickle and 17 sickles in a galleon making it 493 knuts to a galleon. As for conversion rates, a Knut is one pence, therefore a sickle is 29 pence and a galleon is 4 pounds 93 pence.”

Harry noted that they were organised in equal stacks “And how many coins are in a stack?”

Again the goblin smiled, the kid really didn’t miss much.

“Stacks of 100”

Harry set down his bag and bulled out the money pouch that McGonagall had given him and another that came with his school robes. It was only then, that Harry entered the vault. When he did, he put twenty full stacks into one pouch and another stack into the other pouch.

‘Maybe’ the goblin thought ‘I judged him too soon.’

Harry exited the vault and then turned once again to the goblin, “How much is in the vault in total?” he asked.

“I’m afraid only Chief Goblin Ragnok can tell you that as he is the one in charge of the Potter Family vaults and assets. I will take you to him” Harry nodded his thanks.

“What’s your name?” the goblin looked up from where he was fiddling with the cart controls, face full of surprise, “Well I can’t just call you goblin, can I? That’s just rude.”

“Garnuff.” He said and again Harry nodded.

They then sat back in the cart and Harry but one of his pouches in his bag and then held up the other, which he was very glad had a weightless charm on it, “Can I also get this converted into Stirling please”

Garnuff nodded “I shall have that done while you meet with Chief Ragnok” he said and a minute later they were out of the cart and Harry was being led down a grand corridor.

Garnuff paused at a set of huge doors and nocked before poking his head inside, “A Mister Harry Potter to see you sir”. There was a muffled response and Harry was ushered inside the room and Garnuff left to go and convert his money.

Harry walked further inside the long room and was greeted by another goblin who he assumed was Chief Ragnok.

“Harry Potter, please take a seat, then we can do business.”

Harry pushed himself up into a large chair and faced the chief goblin, once he was comfortable in the chair a pile of files appeared in front of him each labelled POTTER FAMILY ACCOUNTS and Ragnok began talking.

“As the goblin in charge of your assets, Mr Potter let me first say how glad I am to finally have you in my office. Albus Dumbledore has not been good for us, no not at all. He has had every penny in redirected to his accounts and he hasn’t let me do anything to improve the mess that was created in doing so.” Ragnok flipped open the first page of the top file “Please sign this Mr Potter, it will put you in control of the decisions made regarding your accounts.”

Harry scanned the contract, saw that it was exactly as was said and signed his name in his neat cursive handwriting and as he did so, felt a surge of magical power as the contract bound him to the accounts.

“You still read over the file.” It wasn’t a question, merely an expression of surprise.

“I’ve learnt not to blindly do as I’m told”

“Good, people will try to exploit you on the assumption that you will because you are young. Never follow the crowd, make your own decisions.”

“Mr Potter, now that you are in control we can take some action to reverse what that old coot has done. I will say this now, this will take some time and if you have other things to do, we may want to reschedule this meeting.”

“I have nothing else that needs doing today.”

“Then let’s get down to business”

 

. ~~Defective~~.

 

Four hours later Harry had finished his meeting with Ragnok, had collected his money from where it had been converted and was back in Ragnok’s office to use his floo. In their meeting the matter of housing had come up and Harry had chosen to use a modern, muggle apartment near just off Oxford Street as his home for the time being, thanking his mum for choosing somewhere that wasn’t in the middle of nowhere to buy a house.

It was now nine o’clock and Harry was tired and really wanted to use a real mattress for once in his life. He changed into his slightly threadbare pyjamas, peeled off his makeshift bandages, washed off the dried blood and climbed into bed, for once not even thinking about splitting open his skin and instead falling asleep to the thought that mattresses were far better than he ever though they would be and wondered quite how much he had actually been missing.

When Harry woke the next morning it was not with bloody arms, and aching back or a screeching aunt like he had before, it was also not five in the morning or freezing cold. It was actually eight o’clock and in a room with heating, a room in a house that he owned, that was fancy but homey and completely his own.

Harry went into the bathroom and checked to see if it had any toiletries, he had packed his own toothbrush but he didn’t have any toothpaste or shampoo of his own. He was happy to find that there were spares of everything from the last time the flat had been lived in but was also saddened by the fact that his mum’s hair would have smelt like that shampoo and the aftershave that was sitting there on the shelf was his dad’s. As Harry showered he realised that these wouldn’t be the only things that were his parents’ belongings; there would be photos and decorations and blankets and throw pillows, little bits of their personalities that Harry could treasure.

He wished that he could have experienced those personalities for himself.

Harry tried to pull himself out of his misery but couldn’t quite manage it, loosing track of time under the soft beads of water. It was as if he wasn’t in his body anymore, instead lost in darkness of his mind and not quite knowing how to pull out of it, not even acknowledging the water running cold or the hunger growing in his stomach or the fact that he had plans for today. The passing of time and the world was completely lost on him.

Harry only came back around when his body was screaming at him. He was shivering under the water that he now realised was cold, he was starving and he needed the toilet. He turned off the water, removed himself from the shower, manoeuvred himself to the toilet, dressed and then picked up his bag, which contained a small amount of the money that he had taken so that he could go and get some breakfast from a small café he had seen across the road.

Outside it was warm and Harry soon stopped shivering, after eating a sandwich in the café Harry returned to his new home and located the study, he sat at the desk and opened up a notebook that was placed there, it was mostly blank but a few pages at the front of the book showed him some notes from October 1980, the year before his parents died.

Harry decided that he would use the book to keep track of his plans and what he needed to do, starting with shopping.

Harry was aware that he needed clothes and of the fact that he could pass as homeless if he wanted, but he also knew that no one had lived in this house for ten years and that there was no food in the fridge and that it was probably lacking in basic cleaning supplies and other such things. Part of the reason Harry had withdrawn so much money was that he knew he would need supplies if he was going to manage on his own.

He decided that his first point of action should be his snake, Harry had decided to call her Ophiuchus after the constellation of the snake bearer, she had slipped off his shoulders after he arrived in the new house and said she was going to hunt for a mouse she smelled but Harry hadn’t seen her since and while he didn’t want mice crawling around in his skirting boards he also didn’t want his pet there.

By the time Harry had finished his list it looked like this:

  1. Find Ophiuchus
  2. Set up Ophiuchus’ “cage”
  3. Buy an owl and another trunk (Harry had seen ones that had multiple compartments and were bigger on the inside and thought they were far more practical)
  4. Owl Blaise
  5. Owl Tracy
  6. Go food shopping (hopefully with assistance from Tracy’s mum so people didn’t get suspicious of a lone child and the adult he was with could easily navigate the muggle world)
  7. Get Blaise’s help with shopping for clothes (he had been wearing muggle clothes in Diagon Ally so Harry figured he could probably help)



Harry sighed as he looked at the time, 12:30, he chastised himself for spending so long in the shower when he knew he had things to do today.

Moving to the kitchen as that was probably where the mice were and therefore where his snake was, Harry started to call out to his pet.

**“Ophiuchus where are you?”**

**“Here master”** the sound of hissing came from under the cupboards by the sink.

**“How successful is your search for mice?”**

**“Very successful they are all gone now”**

**“What are you doing now then?”**

**“It is warm and humid by the pipes master”**

**“I’m going to set up your cage, it will be warm and humid and will have many plants for you to lay on and lots of space for you to move around in”**

**“Then I shall return to you so I can move in the warmth”** Harry heard the soft drag of Ophiuchus’ smooth blue scales across the floorboards and then saw her push out of the cupboard containing the pipes under the sink, her size that of a milk snake so that she could slip through the cracks in the base of the cabinet that lead to the space for the pipes under the floorboards.

He smiled and moved through the house into the bedroom, where his now enlarged trunk was and took out the enclosure for his pet. He moved it through to the open plan living area and placed it on the bottom layer of the TV stand where he would be able to see and hear her easily and there wouldn’t be far to fall if she climbed out. Harry took out his wand, tapped it on the enclosure and said the species of snake he needed a habitat for.

“Blue Sri Lankan pit viper”

As soon as it was said the enclosure started to change. It expanded as far as the furniture allowed and plants sprouted up from the bottom while tree branches grew from out of the three sides that weren’t glass and leaves fell down from the top. Harry opened up the two way flap that would allow Ophiuchus in and out of the enclosure to let her inside and heard her sigh happily.

**“Perfect”** she hissed

**“I’m glad, I am going out now, and what should I do about food”**

**“I shall hunt for my own food, it is London, there is much prey.”**

**“I shall see you soon then”**

**“Goodbye, master”**

 

 

. ~~Defective~~.

 

_Tracy_

_I’m aware that we only met yesterday but I could really use your help. When we met I was in the care of my aunt and uncle, they didn’t like magic and knew that both of my parents were magical and so they assumed I would be too so they mistreated me because of it._

_When I discovered about the Wizarding World and saw what my parents had left me at Gringotts I decided that I would leave my aunt and uncle’s care and look after myself. After I had been dropped back at their house yesterday, I got the train back into London and went back to Gringotts to withdraw what I needed and while I was there found out the extent of what my parents had left me. I am currently staying in one of their old houses, just off Oxford Street but it hasn’t been lived in for ten years so it is lacking food and I am having to eat out until I can stock up._

_I know this is quite a lot to put in a letter but I would be eternally grateful if you could ask your mother to give me a hand. I know you said that she was a muggle so I figured she would be able to navigate a muggle supermarket unlike the others’ parents who are magical and have therefore been rather cut off from the muggle world (or at least that’s the impression I get)._

_I thought that you might also be able to give me a bit more information about the Wizarding World without looking at me like my eyes are falling out every time I ask a simple question._

_Don’t worry if you can’t, I’m only really asking for the help so people don’t get suspicious of a line ten year old going food shopping and so that I have a friend before I go to Hogwarts and end up a loner._

_Write back soon, Harry._

 

Harry sent off the second owl he had gotten earlier that day back at Diagon Ally along with a more practical trunk and started to look around the apartment to see just what he would need to buy. Harry hopes Tracy would get the letter quickly, it was quarter to three and Harry wanted to see what else he could do that day or if he would spend the day shopping. He had already owled Blaise about organising a day to go shopping and he had received a very fast reply saying he would ask his mum about it because really she’s the one who knows about clothes so if he wants advice she’s the one he needs and then another reply from Blaise, this time from one of his owls, telling him that he’d better write his address and whether they can floo in and send the paper back and quickly because his mum was outraged at his lack of appropriate clothing and was coming over at 4 to take him shopping.

Harry was pleasantly surprised that it was only food that he needed to stock up on, his parents had left enough of everything else to last him easily until he went to school. Harry tried not to focus on the fact that they clearly thought they would be coming back and instead focus on what sort of food he would need.

He was dislodged from his musings by a tapping on the window from the owl he had sent off to Tracy half an hour ago. He let it in and it flew to its perch by the window, next to his other owl. The one he had sent to Blaise was a Sooty Owl, dark grey and speckled with white, called Ivory and the other was a Snowy Owl, white and speckled with a warm brown, called Ebony, ***This is a quick break from our story to tell you not to come for me because I didn’t name the white owl Hedwig, personally I don’t like that name and it’s just an owl. Also I know that ivory is white and ebony is black, I switched it on purpose. Now back to the story*** Harry had bought two owls because he thought it would be more convenient. Once Ebony has landed she stuck her leg out and Harry slipped off the response.

_Harry_

_This is my address_

_28 Southbrook Rd._

_The floo is open, find the nearest point you can if yours isn’t open, my mum said to get here ASAP. She is freaking out about you living alone and is very worried about your mental health._

_Tracy_

 

Harry grabbed his shoes and hissed a quick goodbye to Ophiuchus before grabbing some floo powder from the mantle, stepping into the fireplace and clearly saying “28 Southbrook road” and being whisked away.

 

. ~~Defective~~.

 

This time when Harry stepped out of the floo he didn’t fall on his face.

But he did still stumble.

He was just brushing off the soot that was on his clothes when a woman who looked a lot like Tracy came rushing in and Tracy came traipsing in after her. While the older woman took Harry by the shoulders and pushed him through the house and into a seat in the kitchen Tracy just looked at him grimaced and mouthed ‘sorry’.

Her mother then poured him a glass of water and sat down at the table with him while Tracy stood in the doorway.

“Now then,” Mrs Davis began “what’s this I hear about you living alone?”

“Well you see, my family were,” Harry pauses not knowing how to phrase it without saying the words ‘abuse’ and ‘neglect’, he couldn’t do it. “Abusive and well, I had the property, it’s not like I’m squatting, and I’ve always been able to look after myself and I have enough money to support myself so, well I thought I’d just live on my own.”

“But what about food and cooking and cleaning and earning more money, you’re, what ten years old, you won’t make it in the world.”

“Mrs Davis, The only reason I asked for help is so that people don’t get suspicious the one time I go shopping this year before I go to Hogwarts, I’ve cooked three meals a day for my aunt, uncle and cousin, only to get the leftovers since I was tall enough to see over the cooker, as well as doing all the cleaning since I was four and my parents may have both been magical but there are still all the tools I need to clean without magic in the house and I know how to use them, as for money, well my parents covered that with the inheritance they left me and the investments they made before they died, I think I’ll be fine. If I need to, I’ll go shopping on my own, this was just a form of assurance that I’m sure I can go without if I need to. I’m not going back and I’m not going into care, I have guests coming in an hour so if you’re not going to help I’ll be going, I have food to buy.”

Harry stood up and made for the living room but was interrupted by the sound of Mrs Davis’ voice.

“Wait” it said “just let us get our shoes, we’ll be right with you”.

Tracy smiled at him, “Did you come from your house or a different floo point?” She asked him as they she put her shoes on.

“From home, 40 South Molton Street.”

“Right then” said her mum “let’s get going shall we?”

 

. ~~Defective~~.

 

Blaise flooed through to Greengrass manor and was greeted in the parlour by Astoria, Daphne’s little sister. He had owled Daphne after he received a letter from Harry Potter asking to go clothes shopping, which he had to admit, wasn’t what he expected from The Boy Who Lived, but then again having seen the state of him the day before and then reading a brief overview of his life so far and new living arrangements, he had to say it didn’t shock him that the boy wasn’t the best dressed.

Astoria ran off to get Daphne and they returned a few minutes later and after a quick goodbye to Daphne’s parents, they flooed back to Blaise’s house to meet his still outraged mother.

It was ten to four when his mother broke and demanded that they arrive early, so that was what they did. Blaise went first and stepped neatly out of the floo before Daphne came through and then his mother. Blaise called out but it seemed like no one was there but then the dark grey owl that had delivered Harry’s letter took off and flew in a circle around the room before landing and holding out its leg so he crossed the room, slipped the note off its leg and read it aloud.

_“Blaise_

_Gone food shopping, I’ll try to be back before four but if I’m not then just stay put, I won’t be kidnapped, I’m with Tracy and her mum so no one questions a ten year old going food shopping._

_I’d say have a cup of tea but there isn’t any, sorry._

_Be back soon_

_Harry”_

“See mum, this is what we get for being early, he’s not here.” Blaise said and Daphne sighed, taking a seat at the small table by the kitchen. His mum stayed quiet.

“It’s very muggle, isn’t it?” Daphne said quietly.

“It is a muggle house in muggle London Daph.” He replied.

“I feel like we shouldn’t be here, it’s like we’ve broken in.” She said again.

“I think it was his parents’ house before they went into hiding at the end of the war, it certainly looks lived in. It’s homey.”

His mother spoke up for the first time, sounding somber “They thought they would be coming back after the war.” It was a quiet statement but the impact was obvious, no one said anything else.

Five minutes later they heard muffled voices and a the door opened with Harry, Tracy and a woman who was most likely, Tracy’s mum, each carrying a large shopping bag full of food into the house.

“Hey Harry.” Daphne said brightly, all of the sadness that filled the air now gone with the arrival of their friends.

“We thought we should bring Daphne for a girl’s opinion” Blaise explained when Harry looked confused at Daphne’s presence.

Blaise and the others then started to unpack the shopping and hand it to Mrs Davis who was in charge of organisation, that way they got everything unpacked and put away by just after four o’clock and Tracy and her mother left after a quick goodbye and Harry promising he would check in regularly and ask if he needed any help.

It was then that the fashion queen that was Blaise’s mother took over.

She grabbed Harry and got him to show her his not at all extensive collection of clothes, at which she was suitable horrified, Blaise was too, what child is made to wear things like that all the time?

It was all going well until she told Harry to take his top off so she could get an idea of what size he actually was when he totally froze up and flat out refused.

And no matter what Blaise’s mum tried Harry wouldn’t budge, we would not take off his shirt and that was that. Blaise sent Daphne a concerned look and it was matched by the one she gave him, what could he be hiding that was so important for them not to see.

His mum conceded to Harry and they ventured out of the house and onto Oxford Street to start shopping. They were right next to Bond Street Tube Station when they turned onto the busy street and so they headed east and turned off onto Bond Street. It was as if Blaise’s mum could finally breathe fresh air after a lifetime of smoke and air pollution because she gained an air of entitlement when she turned onto the street full of designer boutiques and lead the three children she was with down the road.

They walked with purpose, only slowing when they came to their first stop: Dolce Gabbana.

Blaise smirked as two shop assistants rushed to get them out of their coats and offer them refreshments while they looked at Harry as if he didn’t belong in the same world as they did. His mother, however was unfazed by their obvious judgment and handed him over to them.

“Take him, dress him, he needs an entire wardrobe and despite his looks he is not lacking in money and is quite willing to spend it.”

The assistants took one look at Harry and shipped him off into the back of the shop to take measurements for him.

 

. ~~Defective~~.

 

Harry reluctantly stripped off his oversized jumper and jeans and watched as the shop assistant’s eyes registered the scars on his arm for what they were. He stood up straight and still when they told him to and waited patiently as they took measurements and collected items of clothing for him to try on. He was given things in all sorts of blues and greens and reds and then was ushered into a changing room to try things on and see what looked good.

As he came out again certain colours and styles of clothing were taken away, eventually when they were happy with how he looked they called in Blaise, his mother and Daphne to come and see what they had done with him. Some more items were taken away and then the rest were packed up and payed for before one outfit was given back to him and he was told to wear that instead of his old clothes before they left again and the process started again in all sorts of shops: Louis Vuitton, Marc Jacobs, Gucci, and so many more.

Then he was taken into shoe shops and he would have to walk around in endless pairs before only one or two pairs were boxed up and put in large bags covered in designer labels showing off just how much money they had spent. Each time they exited a shop Ms Zabini put a notice-me-not charm in the new bags so that no one would be tempted to steal Harry’s new belongings, something she assured him she had learnt the had way.

By the time they arrived back at Harry’s house they were each holding at least three bags and Harry had what seemed like a full wardrobe for every occasion. He has clothes and shoes and accessories for lounging around the house, casual outings, formal and informal events, he even had designer pyjamas. He could go for a preppy look or a trendy look or a classy look or a casual look with multiple shoes to match each option.

What Harry was most pleased about though, wasn’t the sheer amount of clothing or the fact it was all from designer labels, Harry loved it because they all fitted him and they were all bought for him, none of them were bought for someone else and given to him as an afterthought. And so what it all cost him tens of thousands of pounds, he had never had anything be bought just for him before and this was worth it. He didn’t even care that he would grow out of it all soon now that he was getting proper meals now and the appropriate amount of sleep, these shops would have all new clothes to be fitted exactly to him and bought with him in mind once again when the clothes he had now got too small or when Ms Zabini demanded he stop wearing last season’s clothes.

He enjoyed Daphne’s applause each time he came out in something that suited him, he enjoyed the feeling of Blaise’s mother’s hand on his shoulders as she guided him into a shop, he enjoyed having people pay him attention, even if it was their job to do it. As he walked down the street in clothes that fitted him and were bought for him and made other people want to be him when they saw him, it made him enjoy being looked at, it wasn’t the negative attention that he was used to getting and he found that he enjoyed it.

Time had flown by when they were out shopping and when he saw that it was eight o’clock as he got home he was surprised. The four of them put Harry’s clothes away correctly and then Harry bid each of them a cheerful goodnight as they left to go back you their own homes. Harry opened up the window in the living room by the owl perches and watched them fly into the night to stretch their wings and catch their prey.

Once again, Harry went to sleep that night peacefully, with no nightmares shocking him into a panic attack in the suffocating darkness. He didn’t cut his arm that night either, not feeling the need. Instead he fell asleep with the hope that maybe he was getting better.

 

. ~~Defective~~.

 

Harry was woken up by light streaming through his bedroom window. He looked at the clock, 4:30.

“Screw you summer” he mumbled, pulling himself out of bed to close his previously forgotten curtains, go to the toilet and get a drink.

He set his glass down beside the sink to wash up later and made to go back to bed. On his way, being as clumsy as he was, Harry tripped over his own, tired feet and knocked open a door as he stumbled, it was the spare bedroom he had dismissed upon seeing that it didn’t have a bathroom he needed to check for cleaning products.

However as he looked further into the room his heart stopped, because written on the baby blue walls in bubble writing that looked like clouds the word ‘Harry’ was written and there was an unused cot surrounded by toy chests that he hadn’t seen before lined up against the wall that backed against the hallway.

It was his room.

The room he should have had.

When movement returned to Harry’s limbs he slowly walked back to bed. Acting on autopilot as his mind drifted away from his body.

Harry didn’t get up that day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> welp... that was long and full of essentially nothing.
> 
> Songs In Order Of Appearance Chap 3  
> Title: See The World - The Kooks


	4. I'll Get By Without Your Smile

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Um not much really happens in this one I'm just trying to fill a little more of the four weeks between Harry's birthday, when he got his letter and going to Hogwarts. But yay more Daphne :)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lol sorry it took so long, i got really busy with school and then I got sick and kinda just wanted to lay in bed and disappear.

Harry didn’t get up that day. 

He didn’t get up the next day either, for the first time not caring about hygiene or the way people would find him if they came looking.  

He was not getting better. If anything he was getting worse, with all the long highs came more intense lows that were caused by more than just physical pain or verbal berating or a need for someone who loved him. The remnants of his parents and the lives they could have had left him in a much worse state anything before.  

And so, for almost two days Harry lay undisturbed by what was going on around him besides the tingling of the magical cleaning charms on the sheets that extended to him and his clothes and took effect if he relieved himself where he lay. He was briefly pulled from oblivion when it first happened, but was tugged back in on the thought that the charms would have been there as a failsafe for baby him when he was young enough to sleep in his mother’s arms. 

Sometimes he couldn’t decide whether it was worse here or at the Dursley’s. It felt like he was going insane here, trapped in a house with a part of his parents everywhere he looked and nothing to do to distract himself but watch endless hours of daytime TV (something he didn’t even want to try if what he saw Petunia watch was any indication of what there was). 

Harry didn’t know what he was doing anymore, was he even alive anymore, he couldn’t remember when he’d last eaten or had a drink. He could recall that the average adult could go three or four without water, but Harry wasn’t an adult, nor was he physically strong or healthy. How long had it been. 

 

. ~~Defective~~. 

 

Half way through Harry’s second day of, well nothing, Tracy Davis sent him an owl saying her mother was determined to come and check on him at around dinner time and, with Harry in the state that he was, the owl dropped the note on top of Harry’s near comatose form and departed back to Tracy with no reply, signalling Harry had received the note. 

As such at around six o’clock there were two flairs into Harry’s floo point and Tracy and her mum came out one after the other and called out to him but received no reply. 

“Is he here?” Tracy heard her mum ask. 

“Well the house keys are here.” 

“Are you sure he received the letter?” 

“Athena didn’t come back with the note so she must have dropped it off.” Tracy was beginning to get worried. 

“Well I’m going to have a look around, see if he’s here.” And so Tracy was left in front of the fireplace while her mum began to search the house. 

She could hear her mum move down the corridor, stopping at some points and moving past others. Tracy sighed, she knew her mum cared but searching his house seemed like she was going overboard.  

“Tracy,” she heard her mother call her name, Tracy could hear the panic in her voice and began to move towards the voice. “Tracy.” Again, louder this time and not just because she was closer to the source, her footsteps quickened until she entered the room her mother was in and saw her mother crouched next to the form of her friend. 

“Tracy get the healers.” She said quietly trying to find a way to rouse the small boy in the disproportionately large bed. 

Tracy just nodded and headed back to the floo to call St. Mungos. She picked up the floo powder and said the name of the hospital as she was transported away knowing it would be quicker than using the floo call service. 

When she reached the hospital she ran to the emergencies desk where she would be asked questions by the attendant but she interrupted before they could start. 

“40 South Molton Street, Harry Potter.” 

The attendant stared at her momentarily frozen, “Harry Potter” he said slowly. 

“Yes, at 40 South Molton Street.”  

“Right. Some healers will be right with you Miss” 

Tracy waited another minute until three healers came out carrying all the basic medical supplies and they walked quickly towards the floo, each said the address and disappeared in a flair of green, soon followed by a panicked young girl. 

When Tracy arrived back at the flat the healers has already disappeared down the hallway and as she followed them to where her friend lay she could hear their panicked voices but couldn’t actually understand the words she was hearing. Tracy sat against the wall and cried. 

She cried because she was scared, she cried because she was tired, she cried because what if she had been too late with the healers, she cried because she felt useless. She cried because it was all she could do. 

She felt her mother slide down the wall next to her and wrap Tracy up in her arms and as she began to calm down phrases started to filter through the haze.  

 _Pulse is low but steady_  

 _Still unresponsive_  

 _Long history of injuries_  

 _Malnutrition_  

Tracy could tell they were the results of diagnosis charms. 

One of the healers started to speak to his coworkers, “There’s no wound that would cause this, the injuries recorded are old enough that they wouldn’t have an effect and the only things that aren’t about a week old are some cuts but he’s a ten year old boy, of course he’ll get a few scrapes. I’d say malnutrition is the most probable cause, it doesn’t look like he’s eaten in over 36 hours.” 

Another turned to Tracy and her mum “we’re going to take him in so that we can observe him and see if he can shed any light on what happened, the diagnostic charms aren’t giving anything conclusive so it’s for the best.” She gave a soft smile and set out a stretcher for her colleagues to lift Harry onto and then came over to help them up from their position on the floor and over to the floo behind the other healers with Harry. 

When they got through to the hospital, they were pushed into some chairs in the waiting areas so they could set up a room so they could run some more tests for any injuries. 

 

. ~~Defective~~. 

 

Things started to properly register in Harry’s mind at 00:37 am, or at least that was the time he could remember the clock saying and before that there was merely a gap in his memory. It took him another hour and a half to register that he wasn’t in his house and for the following panic to pull him out of his depression.  

At his sudden raise in heart rate a woman came rushing into the room looking panicked but relaxed again when she saw him. 

He was curled up with his knees against his chest by the pillow of the bed, making himself as small as possible and was mentally chastising himself for not coming out of it when they took him and he stopped breathing for a moment when he realised; they would send him back. 

But instead of looking angry or disapproving, the woman just looked concerned and as she entered further into the room she turned on the dim bedside lamp so they weren’t only in the eerie blue light of the machines and then sat down at the foot of the bed, as far from Harry as possible while still sitting on the crisp white sheets. Instead of breaking the silence she sat there quietly, looking at his face but not making constant eye contact and smiling gently at him the whole time as he assessed her presence and slowly relaxed around her, moving into a more comfortable position. 

When he was more comfortable with her she finally spoke, “My name is healer Miller. Mr Potter, you’re in St. Mungo’s”. Her voice was gentle and quiet as she told him what was going on. “You were transferred here from your house yesterday afternoon when you were found by Mrs Davis and her daughter but we couldn’t find any immediate physical cause for the state you were in, do you think you can tell us anything that might make it clearer what happened?”  

The words ‘depression’ and ‘disassociation’ flashed through Harry’s mind. Despite what he had been told daily by the Dursley’s, Harry wasn’t an idiot. The periods of amnesia that coincided with his depressive episodes made it clear that something was wrong a long time ago, so (actually understanding that google doesn’t stop working on your phone when a newer model comes out), Harry had looked up some good books on mental health and psychology and had found them in the library so he could do some research (also understanding that internet diagnosis was a load of shit). Harry had quickly discovered that he showed multiple symptoms of depression, anxiety and PTSD and while he had never seen anyone for a proper diagnosis, over the years it was impossible to ignore the signs. 

And yet, as the words bloomed on his lips they morphed into the words, “sorry, I don’t know anything.”  

After all, he was the Boy-Who-Lived, a beacon of wartime hope and the saviour of the Wizarding World that people were expecting to be the perfect image of childhood joviality when he officially entered society after ten years away. There was no way he could admit to this being wrong with him. His mind was injured beyond repair but he could put on a brave face and make people think that he was fine. He’d been doing it for years already, he’d just have to be careful around anyone who actually cared. 

“Ok, well can you tell us why you’re living alone? A child shouldn’t be living without a guardian and I hear that you have been for the past four days”  

Shit. Shititty shit shit shit shit arsehole. How was he supposed to explain that. He couldn’t tell the truth or they’d figure out he was messed up but he couldn’t lie or they’d send him back. Harry looked away to hide his panic and luckily Healer Miller thought it was due to shame that he’d been caught out. 

“You’re lucky you were found when you were, we’ve had to pump a lot of fluid through you to get you back to an even vaguely acceptable state. You’ll be going home later today, get some more rest and then we can get your things packed up and send you back to your family.” She said with a smile and standing from the bed, she took another step towards him and ruffled his hair. “Look after yourself please, Mr Potter.” And then she turned and walked out of the room. 

 

. ~~Defective~~. 

 

The next day that very thing happened. He was discharged, his things were packed into his trunk which was now shrunk down in his rucksack again and he was sent back to the Dursley’s house, much to their distaste. 

Needless to say, Harry was not happy when he woke in the cupboard with his skin split open on his back and a bloody right forearm. He wiped off the blood as well as he could before he exited his ‘room’ to go and was it off properly before he was dumped at the summer school the Dursley’s had put him in to get rid of him over the holidays.  

He padded around the house quietly so no one was woken until they had to be as he went around his new -but also old- daily routine: upstairs to brush his teeth; back to his cupboard so he can get changed; into the kitchen to make breakfast -bacon crispy and egg yolk gooey enough for dipping but not runny. He’d been doing it for years but after four days of an alternative it seemed so much worse than it had. 

Luckily right after his aunt came down and they had finished their breakfasts he was shipped off to school. 

The day went by quickly and without anything interesting happening until lunch time, when, as Harry sat in the corner and ate his lunch alone he heard someone whispering his name from the bushes. 

“Harry, in here.”  

Harry had finally identified the small hole in the bushes the voice was coming from and, taking a quick look around to check he wasn’t being watched, he pushed through the twigs and leaves to find a girl crouching in front of a hole in the fence of the school.  

“Hi,” said the girl “I’m Astoria, Daphne’s sister, she’s on the other side of the fence keeping watch. We’re going to rescue you.” She said it all with a big smile on her face and Harry couldn’t help but laugh. 

“What?” She asked. 

“Nothing.” He replied before he poked his head out again to check no one was looking for him and grabbed his lunch and his bag to leave with. And watched as Astoria crawled back under the fence and pushed his things through before following suit. 

Once he was on the other side he saw Daphne smiling at him and he was so glad he had friends now. 

“What time does your break end?” She asked him looking far more serious than her sister even with their matching grins -clearly she was in charge of organising their break out and Astoria was here to do the more fiddly, hands on parts. 

“1:30” 

“And what’s the fastest way to Diagon from here?” 

“That depends on what time it is.” 

She checked her watch “twenty to one.” 

He grinned, they probably had a little over an hour before he would be called in as missing if they accounted for the time they would wait for him to turn up to class after lunch, check around the school, call his family and call the police. Shit the police. “Wait if I leave now they’ll call the police, a missing child will be in the news.”  

Daphne looked resigned, “Well we have as much of a plan as possible for the news but we just have to get as far away as possible before the police start to look for you.” 

It wasn’t the best situation to be in but they weren’t going to leave him and he wasn’t going to hurt them down when they’d come all the way here for him.  

“Follow me.” Harry said and he set off towards his family’s house. Every Tuesday his aunt would go shopping for food from half past twelve until one o’ clock; his uncle would be at work from nine ‘til five and Dudley always went to Piers’ house on Tuesdays and their rout wouldn’t go past the park so they would be safe from his family as well as the security cameras of the town centre. 

The school was actually only ten minutes away from his house so with the three of them moving at a jog they were on privet drive in five minutes and Harry waisted no time in bypassing his own house to go to Mrs Figg’s house instead, thoroughly confusing the girls behind him. 

“Harry don’t you live at number 4? You need your things.” Daphne said as Harry dug around for a rock in a plant pot. 

“My stuff’s already in my bag, my trunk has shrinking and weightless charms on it and I never bothered unpacking cause I was gonna leave again tonight anyway. This is Mrs Figg’s house, she’s a squib but she has floo connection. She’ll be at the park feeding the ducks at the moment.” 

Harry found the correct rock and pulled the key out of the pot super glued to the bottom of it, using it to enter the house. 

“So we’re breaking into her house!?” Daphne cried, then looking around quickly to see if she’d drawn anyone’s attention with her outburst. “Sorry.” She whispered. 

“Well her cats set of her alarm so she never sets it and we can put the key back so she’ll never know” Harry reasoned 

“That’s not my problem.” She said as Astoria laughed. 

Harry opened the door with a click “Well it’s too late now isn’t it.” And as he put the key back where it belonged Astoria danced past them both, giggling at their argument. 

“To be fair Daph, this is the fastest way to Diagon.” She pointed out. 

“Exactly, it’s much faster than the train would be and there are no security cameras this way so we can’t be found as easily.” He smirked and followed his friend’s sister inside and lead through the house to the floo, passing each of the girls some floo powder and they each went through to The Leaky Cauldron. 

They then darted into the back alley and into the small shopping district and headed towards the bank. 

“Why are we going to Gringotts?” Harry questioned  

Daphne began to explain their plan for avoiding the press, “If it makes it into the press that you’re missing then you’ll have your name mixed in there, at which point any wizarding adults in the muggle world will become aware that you’re gone and then the Daily Prophet will start reporting and then everyone will know, but you can’t go back to your flat because that address will be being monitored because St Mungos has it. They’ll assume you’re going to go there and you’ll set of the detection wards that the aurors will put up to catch you.” 

Daphne pauses her explanation as they reached the doors of the bank to check that Harry was following along and Astoria took off where her sister had stopped. 

“So, in order to keep you undetected, we’re going to check what other properties you own and move you somewhere else. Also making use of the small window of access you have to your flat to get anything you’ll want to take, like, I don’t know, food?” 

Harry nodded his agreement and understanding as he guided them to approach the same teller as last time and placed the key he had dug out of his bag on top of the table. 

“I’d like to see the list of private property owned by the Potter family please.” He said with a mischievous smirk. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Songs In Order Of Appearance chap 4  
> Title: Elvis Ain't Dead - Scouting For Girls


	5. You'll Be Just Another Regret

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> To Hogwarts!!!... Well not really but the Hogwarts Express yay.

Harry chose to live in the house with the best wards out of his properties, leaving him in a seven story townhouse in South Kensington.  

Harry took the highest room, facing the street and he often spent time on the seventh floor where the windows were big and the light could stream in and cast rainbows off the edges of the glass dining table in the middle of the room. The house was bright and a calming retreat from the rest of the world where his face was at least somewhere on every newspaper.  

Harry was a week into his hibernation and it didn’t look like he was going to get out any time soon. The headlines had started as expected, keeping him off the front pages and out of the spotlight, with a simple, single “police are looking for a ten year old boy who has gone missing from his summer school in Surrey.” 

Harry had watched as the Dursleys had milked the news story as much as possible until it came to light that he had disappeared the day after he had been returned to their home the day before.  

The news the next morning was read with the top story as his disappearance. 

 _“Investigations are being made against a family in Surrey_ _after_ _a discovery in the police investigation following their missing nephew. Harry Potter went missing from_ _the summer school he was attending_ _in Surrey on the_ _6_ _th_ _of August and police have been investigating his disappearance without any leads. However in a session of questioning with his family they discovered that he had actually gone missing from his home on the 1_ _st_ _as well, being returned five days later._ _The police are now no longer investigating the incident as a kidnapping and are viewing the situation as the boy having run away from the care of his aunt and uncle_ _.”_  

And the eleven o’clock news got worse.  

 _“Earlier today we were discussing the disappearance of the ten year old boy, Harry Potter and since then we’ve received more information about the_ _situation and I have to say it’s rather distressing. The Dursley family have been housing their nephew Harry Potter since his parents were murdered when he was one. However_ _the police have found_ _little evidence for them being appropriate guardians to the boy. There is evidence throughout the house of neglect and the behaviours of the family in question are said to suggest the mistreatment of their young ward. Some of the evidence that the police have been willing to share is_ _that the boy is missing from all family photos,_ _he was sleeping in the cupboard under the stairs when his cousin had two bedrooms and there was another spare, as well as his aunt and uncle never having called him by his name throughout the whole investigation, instead referring to him as ‘the boy’. In light of this we are opening up the conversation with you…”_  

That was just the third day of investigations. Over the course of the next four days the news had stayed on top of the case, with is face plastered all over the newspaper and everyone talking about the case he wasn’t holding out hope for leaving the house. 

According to his friends, who had dropped in every other day or so, it wasn’t looking much better on the magical side of the news. The Daily Prophet was following the story of their national treasure and was keeping the whole of the Wizarding World on tenterhooks. Apparently the only saving grace on that side was that Rita Skeeter had returned to her gossip column after her first article on the story because the world was calling for facts not embellishments. 

Being in a house that hadn’t been lived in by his parents did make him a bit happier though. Now wherever he went he didn’t see one of their things or their way of decorating the house. This one was full of white and green and blue as opposed to the warm browns, reds and golds of the other house. It was filled with plants and pictures of the sea and nature and the neutral colour scheme that filled the whole house made it bright and airy. Somewhere that he could relax and didn’t give him an overwhelming sense of longing for something more.  

This house was also bursting with magic and it made his heart sing, from the kitchen that restocked food automatically and threw out anything that had gone bad, and the plants that watered themselves to the potions room in the basement and the moving portraits and ceilings that were charmed so at night they show a different constellation in each room. Harry’s room showed the constellation Orion and Harry fell asleep each night looking at Saiph and Rigel and Bellatrix. It helped to have them there, calming him through each nights sudden anxiety attack and sometimes even easing him away from the razor that he knew wouldn’t help his loneliness but gave him enough of a sense of security that he didn’t care. 

The house also had a lift as well as stairs, so it didn’t take fourteen flights of stairs to get up to the conservatory and garden on the roof, as well as a rubbish chute and one for dirty dishes so they could go down into the sink, where they would be magically washed and dried and put away so Harry could find them again when he wanted to make more food. 

Overall Harry liked this house far more than the last one, hopefully, with all the wards he wouldn’t be found and could stay here. 

 

. ~~Defective~~. 

 

Albus was sitting in his office kicking himself. 

How had this gotten so far out of hand? He was so close to getting his hands on his perfect hero, four weeks before he would finally have done so the boy was gone and his allowance of the polices investigation had gone so wrong. It was supposed to be a missing persons case not a child abuse case and somehow his  _dear little Harry_  had disappeared completely off the map. 

His first disappearance coincided with the day Minerva had taken him to Diagon Ally but she had insisted that she had returned him safely to his home with the Dursleys before going on a tirade about how horrible they are and  _“Albus how can we leave him there, they are horrid to him, simply the worst_ _!”_  But dear Minnie that was the entire point, give him such awful carers that he would never dare to be anything but the purest little boy. Naïve and desperate for acknowledgment and praise, that’s what he wanted. Clearly though he was going to have to do a little more work to get the boy on side, from what Arabella has said he was stubborn and manipulative, not settling for anything other than what he wants when possible.  

Albus needed that boy. It was essential to all of his plans. Merlin, he had been so sure it would work, he would make it work, one way or another  

 

. ~~Defective~~. 

 

Harry woke up at 10:30 on the 17th of August, the eleventh day of his  -well he didn’t really know what to call it, it wasn’t solitude because his friends often dropped in but something like incarceration seemed too negative; hibernation that’s what he would call it- hibernation to the noise of the lift going up to the seventh floor. 

Harry panicked. 

What if he’d been found? what if they were going to take him back again? What would happen if they did? surely they wouldn’t put him with the Dursleys again but a care home wasn’t going to be any better. 

He climbed quickly out of bed and walked to his wardrobe to find something to wear. Even if he had been found, he wouldn’t have a load of police or aurors or whoever it was bursting in to find him in his pyjamas, it was bad enough that he always had bed hair, he kept it styled like it was because he could get away with the messy look but that didn’t mean it wasn’t awful in the mornings.  

He was dressed and brushing his teeth in the bathroom coming off his room when the intruder walked through the bedroom door and Harry looked up in the bathroom mirror to see through the crack in the door and catch a glimpse of who he would be trying to evade this time.  

It was Blaise. 

In hindsight, of course it was Blaise. Why would the police use the lift or go straight to the seventh floor. Honestly how stupid could he get. It was at this point that Harry’s insecurity started piping up,  _‘useless waist of space, how do you expect to avoid being noticed for another two weeks if you can’t even use your brain. How do you expect to get into the train to school if your face is everywhere, there’s no way a freak like you could do it.’_  

The voice had a point, did Daphne think that far forward? Even if she did would her plans still work under the circumstances?  

Harry spat out his toothpaste just as Blaise opened the door further and put down a small package on the counter next to him and holding up a slightly crumpled and unopened letter with his name on it. 

“I see you didn’t notice the letter I sent you telling you I’d be around.” He said grinning as Harry splashed him with water. 

“Sorry.” Harry grimaced. 

“Don’t worry about it, I have your glasses.” He replied lightly swatting the box he carried in. 

Ah, Harry’s new glasses. When Blaise’s mum had taken them all shopping part of the experience had been an eye test and new glasses, which is how he found out that the world is so much clearer when he has glasses that are the correct prescription.  

Ms Zabini had chosen some glasses, within Harry’s guidelines, that suited his face and that he liked from Ollie Quinn and they had told them to deliver them. It was less reliable for muggles to get them delivered as they couldn’t make alterations to the fit away from the shop but for wizards you could just enchant them to adjust to your face automatically so it was ideal for Harry’s situation. 

Harry’s were some simple black, metal, half rimmed, square but rounded, ‘hipster’ -Harry hated that word but in this case it was accurate- glasses. They looked good on him, unlike his old circular ones that, in Ms Zabini’s words, made his face look like a baby potato (sometimes Harry really loved Blaise’s mums turn of phrase, this was not one of those times.)  

Looking at himself in the bathroom mirror next to Blaise, Harry could see how much he had changed in the past few weeks. Three full meals a day and nutrient potions courtesy of Tracy’s dad meant that he was taller than he was and he was no longer just a sack of bones, while he was still too skinny, you could no longer see every one of his ribs and instead you could see the muscle he had built up while working for the Dursleys. He looked more like a normal child than a child slave now and it looked good on him. Although he could see that he needed a haircut, it was all getting a little long on the sides for it too look good, he should probably get that done. 

“So, what are we doing today,” Blaise broke the silence “my mum said I could stay today, apparently she’s got errands to run.” He sighed and Harry winced. Blaise had told Harry that he had worked out long ago that ‘errands’ was code for ‘dinner with a young rich man that she could use as an excuse to ignore Blaise for a couple of months before they got married and he tragically died leaving her all his money, at which she buys him something shiny as an empty apology’. All of Harry’s other friends knew this too and they also all knew that Ms Zabini had spent more time with Blaise than she had in years since Blaise became friends with Harry, A.K.A Ms Zabini’s new ‘project’. Harry was just glad that Blaise didn’t hate him for it. 

Harry turned to look at Blaise, “We could check out all the old junk in the basement.” He suggested and Blaise grinned at him. He might be rich and clean cut but Blaise was an eleven year old boy and if he got the opportunity to go and climb over piles of old furniture and mess about in the dark then he wasn’t going to turn it down. 

“Come on then.” Harry said, venturing out of his rooms and towards the stairs where he sat on the banister and let go of the top post so he started to slide down the long strip of wood. 

Looking back he could see Blaise shaking his head as he walked into the lift and quickly yelled, “See you there!”  

As Harry reached the bottom he saw Blaise waiting for him having gotten out of the strangely fast lift a few moments beforehand. Harry leant back so that his back was pressed against the banister to slow himself down and slip gracefully off the end with a smirk on his face. Blaise lightly hit him over the head before he opened the door down tho the basement so they could go exploring. 

They couldn’t see the bottom from the doorway but as they started down the spiral staircase torches on the wall starting to burst into flames to light their way. They got to the floor and stepped off the stairs onto the stone floor of the basement. It was nothing like the cellar that lead down from the kitchen to the extended pantry and wine cellar, that was brightly lit and properly furnished with curtains and drapes just like the rest of the house. It wasn’t like the potions lab or duelling room that was slight below street level either, natural light was allowed into those by the windows on the front of the house and they were designed as a part of the main house so they matched every other room. The basement was dark and dimly lit, filled with unorganised objects ranging from records and silverware to old beds and dining tables, it was clearly where everything was left when it was out of style so it wasn’t decorated itself, ending up just looking shabby even with everything still in perfect condition due to powerful preservation spells. 

“Cool,” Blaise breathed quietly before bounding into the mess and discovering that the torches kept going deep into the room. 

Harry looked around at everything and started to explore at a far slower pace only looking to the end when he heard Blaise yelp and saw him falling over something, making Harry laugh and give him three slow claps and pausing when the torches lit up the whole chamber and then plunged them into darkness. 

“Umm, Harry? What did you do?” He heard Blaise’s voice from further into the room. 

Harry clapped twice and the whole place lit up like a Christmas tree. 

He saw Blaise’s head poke up from behind an abandoned sofa and heard him say “Woah” with a stunned look on his face before trying it for himself and pouting when it didn’t work until he was distracted by whatever he had fallen over.  

“Hey Harry” he called, suddenly sounding a lot more serious even with the awe that still filled his voice and Harry set off through the wasteland towards his friend, finding him leaning over some books that had been knocked over. 

“What?” He asked  

“These books are on dark magic.” 

“What does that mean?” 

“Dark magic generally isn’t taught anymore because it requires more emotion than light magic, that makes it harder to control and gives it more potential for evil because you can manipulate it however you want as long as you put enough emotion and want into the spell. That makes it harder to understand and the ministry is scared of what it can be used for so they highly regulate how the information is distributed. Each wizard and witch has a magical core that gives them an affinity with different branches of magic: light, dark and grey. Everyone can use every branch of magic it just means that a light wizard has trouble with spells born from dark magic and vice versa while a grey wizard won’t have trouble with either but won’t necessarily reach the same level as someone with a distinctive core. Because of the stigma that the ministry have caused for dark magic people with a dark core are automatically named as evil because they supposedly have a greater potential for it when you can actually cause just as much damage with a light spell you just don’t have to mean it so they don’t get shunned.” 

Blaise finished his explanation as more of a bitter rant and Harry started to see the pitfalls of the magical government and the Wizarding World. 

“I take it you have a dark core?” Harry asked quietly and Blaise nodded 

“Your core generally starts to lean towards a side when you’re a child due to your actions and emotions as a child because it’s your innate behaviours and then it’s cemented when you turn eleven, I suppose I’m dark because I was angry at my mum for not looking after me and now I’m just bitter about it, merlin that sounds really emo.” 

Harry laughed at the look of disgust on his friend’s face and thought over what his core would be. 

“So I’d have a dark core too?” He asked 

“It’s definitely possible.” 

“How can you find out for certain?” 

“It’s generally tradition to do an inheritance test at Gringots on your eleventh birthday and then that tells you.” 

Harry sighed, he would get caught as soon as he stepped foot in Diagon Alley but when he saw a look of realisation cross Blaise’s face he raised an eyebrow as if to say to share his revelation. 

“There was a big story from the war where Bellatrix Lestrange escaped capture because of Gringots. She flooed in to Knockturn Alley to do business but she needed to go to Gringots too. At that point there were aurors all over every major magical gathering point to avoid war casualties so they were all over Diagon but she just walked out, took out a load of aurors and ran into the bank. The aurors couldn’t follow her in because the goblins don’t let people in if they aren’t there for business. In other words, you can go in as long as you are there for business but anyone looking to take you away can’t follow because they would be disrupting bank business so they won’t be let in. The aurors aren’t there anymore because the war is over so if we go at night we won’t get caught.” 

Harry looked into Blaise’s eyes and found conviction that he has no doubt could make him think they could do anything, I was glad that Blaise wasn’t trying to manipulate him like so many people had before, he could finally trust someone. 

Then Harry saw movement in the mess behind Blaise and was about to point it out as a warning when he recognised Ophiuchus’ beautiful teal scales. Just as with the other house, as soon as she was released into the building Harry had set her onto the job of exterminating the vermin that had found their way in however their new residence had a far more extensive family of mice so she had been slowly filling up her (now magically expanded) enclosure with her conquests. It had been two weeks and she hadn’t asked for more food once. 

She slid between Blaise’s legs, making him jump, and up onto Harry’s arm 

 _“_ _Master, behind the staircase there is a fake wall, a speaker must open it, I can smell the mice inside.”_ She said 

 _“Ok I will open it for you and explore further with my friend”_ Harry hissed back at her, shocking Blaise further. 

“You’re a Parselmouth!” He cried, eyes wide with shock but Harry just looked at him confused. “You can speak to snakes.” He elaborated. 

“Yeah, always have been, I love them.” He said with a smile. 

“Parseltounge is considered dark, Voldemort could speak it too. You might want to keep it quiet that you can do it if you want to avoid the judgement you’ll get for it.”  

Harry just nodded. “I’m teaching her English anyway so it’ll look like it’s a familiar bond, that’s what the shopkeeper thought it was when I bought her but he didn’t hear me speak to her and if he was right I would be bonded to every snake I ever met which just seemed wrong.” 

“Yeah, a familiar bond is when you can detect how the pet feels and use that as a means of communication, it’s never something as literal as being able to speak the same language, what did she say anyway?” 

“The wall behind the staircase is fake, I set her on all the mice in the house and there are some behind it, want to take a look?” 

Blaise just nodded eagerly and pulled Harry up off the floor, leaving the book they were previously looking at behind on the floor in favour of further exploration. 

When they got to the wall Ophiuchus dropped down from Harry’s and slid across the floor to a section with an engraving of some sort of squiggly lines across it. As Harry focused he saw the lines morph into the romanised alphabet and was able to read it. 

“Read the tongue, Speak the knowledge, Reap the power” he read looking to Blaise for advice. 

“Try saying it in Parseltongue.” He suggested, shrugging. 

As he did so the wall melted away like a waterfall and Ophiuchus shot off into the darkness and he looked back a Blaise’ “should we go in, it could be dangerous.” 

But Blaise lifted an eyebrow and threw caution to the wind as he ventured into the darkness and the passage was lit up before him as he walked. 

 

. ~~Defective~~. 

 

It took ten minutes of walking and talking and hissing and even dripping his blood into a stone bowl before an archway finally opened up into a huge library. There were shelves from floor to ceiling for five levels (luckily with a search index and ways to summon them by author or theme or both) and when Blaise looked at the nearest shelves his eyes went wide and he went straight to the summoning shelves. 

He used his wand to tap the shelves and then said what books he wanted to appear. “All books that comply with the latest Ministry restrictions.” 

Harry looked at him to question his search but was sidetracked by the amount of books that appeared on the shelves. One book. Just one. In the entire library only a single book complied with the current standards set by the Ministry.  

“Offensive and Defensive Light Spells and Their More Deadly Uses”  

Blaise read it with an air of incredulity, Harry could see the disbelief of his face and knew his face matched it. Either the Ministry was banning a stupid amount or all of this was inherently evil and he would have to leave immediately. 

He decided it was the former when he saw a book on ‘alternative domestic potions’ and opened it to find the only difference was the ingredients. 

Harry then decided that he would spend every possible moment down here and vowed to find a way to smuggle some of the more harmless books into school. 

It was, subsequently, this decision that lead Daphne to find him down there with his trunk on the first of September, loading the last few books into a password protected and now highly warded (who cares if their purpose was illegal, Harry found setting them up easy enough) section of his trunk as she came to collect him to go to school. It was seven o’clock but Daphne said that it was necessary to get up so early for the train if they wanted the plan to work. 

Apparently the aurors were expecting him to get to the station from the muggle entrance and would be placing most of the task force there, with minimal aurors actually on the station and then also only arriving two hours before the train left (so at nine o’clock). They would also not be searching the train as not to disrupt people unnecessarily, however the train actually gets into the station at seven so that it doesn’t inconvenience people who won’t be available closer to eleven (although who that applies to no one seems to know).  

This left a two hour time gap for Harry to get to the station and safely on the train via the floo network. 

“Wait, why is it going to take two hours to achieve that?” Harry asked Astoria as he hauled his trunk back up to the connected fireplace. 

“Daphne is insisting you get your hair freshly cut before leaving so you look as different from those atrocities in the paper as possible, really you looked awful before the cut you have now.” Astoria wrinkled her nose and shook her head at the mere thought of it and he had to agree with the judgement, his hair just stuck up everywhere and he couldn’t do anything with it. Not that he could now, mind, it just looked a lot better than it did. 

Daphne held out the floo powder for them before replacing it on the mantelpiece and stepping onto the grate, throwing the powder down, saying clearly “Greengrass Manor” and disappearing in a flair of emerald fire. 

Harry followed next, doing exactly the same but with his trunk behind him and his snake around his arm and shoulders, and didn’t even get a look at Astoria coming through behind him as he was pulled out of the deep inset and pushed through a series of corridors until he was in a… well it looked like a hairdressers but it was in Daphne’s house so he didn’t really know what it would be. 

After a half hour, whirlwind experience of the most meticulous haircut he had ever experienced he was pulled up again and through the halls again until they were back at the fireplace at exactly 07:42 hours when he was passed through to Tracy so it wouldn’t be obvious to any wizards already on the platform that he wasn’t actually part of the family and then they flooed into the station. 

It actually made Harry a little dizzy. He’d been pushed around and overwhelmed with everything around him for the past three quarters of an hour and being faced with the majestic image of the bright red steam engine took his breath away and suddenly things slowed right down to zero. 

Now for the performance. According to the Daphne they recorded the happenings on the platform to be reviewed after the train left and catch any illicit activity before the train arrived at Hogsmeade. The ‘cameras’ were lined up along the wall so they would have to keep his face away from them the whole time and put on the perfect act of a family so he wasn’t discovered and taken away as soon as he was off the train. 

“Well kids,” Mr Davis started, turning away from the train as he spoke so it was the parents that were visible, “you be good for your teachers and work hard”, Mrs Davis began fussing over Harry’s clothes and Tracy’s hair and Mr Davis enveloped them all in a bear hug that had been pre-prepared so Harry didn’t tense up too much at to contact. Mrs Davis took over talking, “write every week” she said with a well timed sniffle and Tracy added on “every day” and Harry nodded firmly while Mr Davis laughed at their ‘antics’. Harry made a show of reaching up to wipe away a tear that wasn't there and they all exchanged hugs and kisses to the cheeks and forehead again and again before he and Tracy insisted that they could go now and they boarded the train, choosing a car in the middle and a compartment on the opposite side of the train to the station so they were completely obscured and then Tracy’s parents left them to go home again. 

Mission acomplished.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Songs in Order of Appearance - chapter 5  
> Title: Dirty Little Secret - The All American Rejects


	6. If This Is an Accident, Then Where's the Hurt?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Angsty Blaise, Theodore Nott, angry Dumbles and Hermione-bashing; altogether a rather fun train ride followed by a very baffled Minnie McG.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ho wow it's been a while, it's also not even a long chapter to make up for it :( oh well, it makes it over my minimum 3000 words and I've got another one coming. Also, the sorting took a lot of effort, i had to go through a list of every character ever to find them all and even then it missed off at least two people that I've now added in (grrr). Oh well, enjoy!

_You’ve been cheating on cheating on me, I’ve been cheating on cheating on you, you’ve been cheating on me, but I’ve been cheating through this life._

Blaise burst into the compartment half an hour earlier than expected, looking like he was about to blow up the entire train. Every movement he made was short, sharp and honestly terrifying. He slammed the door open and closed, hurled his trunk onto the racks above them, threw himself down next to Tracy and kicked his feet up onto the seat opposite him and jerking Harry out of his own little world of music.

“My mother is in Barbados.” Blaise said, swallowing thickly and looking at the ceiling. “She left this morning and left me a note on the dining table to say that she would be back in a few weeks because things are going really well with _Richard_ and she wants to spend some _quality time_ with him” he blinked hard before looking down, still not daring to look at his friends.

Harry took a couple of deep shaky breaths before chucking a book he had by his side at Blaise and changing the topic. “Look what I found in the library.”

Blaise looked and found it was a thick book on the deadliest ancient magical reptiles.

“Page 394”

Blaise opened the book and flipped to the correct page before his eyes went wide. Ranking 17th was the Blue Sri Lankan Pit Viper and the picture showed one that looked exactly like Harry’s. “Please don’t tell me you brought it to Hogwarts with you”

Harry just looked out of the window looking like the picture of innocence and Blaise didn’t quite know what to say.

Fortunately Tracy has looked at the book and found her voice. “You’re going to get in so much trouble.”

Harry just smirked. “Actually I won’t, I got Ophiuchus when I went shopping with McGonagall and she doesn’t know I can speak to snakes so she thinks that Ophiuchus is my familiar and according to the school rules, which for some reason there is a copy of in the main library, Hogwarts cannot refuse to house anyone’s bonded familiar for fear of the repercussions of their separation.”

“If I wasn’t your friend, I would be terrified right now.” Blaise said.

“I’m still terrified right now.” Tracy added.

“Why are we terrified?” Daphne said as she flounced gracefully into the compartment.

“Harry found a fool proof way to get the his snake into school.” Tracy explained as she handed Daphne the book on Blaise’s lap.

Daphne looked at the page and started to laugh, the sound filling the compartment and lifting everyone’s spirits and as she sat down everyone was relaxed again and as the train pulled away from the station everything was calm.

 

. ~~Defective~~.

 

“Headmaster Dumbledore?” The deep voice of Kingsley Shacklebolt sounded from outside the door to the Headmasters office.

Dumbledore took a deep breath, the express had pulled away from the station and the Aurors has gone over the CCTV with a fine tooth comb after they didn’t find Harry Potter in person.

“Come in, Kingsley” he called and the auror entered without giving anything away. “How was the search? Is he on the train?” Dumbledore asked eagerly.

Kingsley grimaced and shook his head. “We’ve been through the footage three times sir, there’s no sign of him.”

Dumbledore’s face fell and he sank into his chair in defeat, Kingsley doing the same opposite him and taking a sherbet lemon.

“How can this have happened sir?” the auror said. “How can we have lost the most important figure in wizarding history in three weeks?”

“I don’t know Kingsley, but we shall have to continue as we are for the time being, we will find him eventually.” Fawkes gave a sad trill and, with that Kingsley left the office.

As soon as the auror was gone, however, the resigned sadness was gone and replaced with raging anger. Letting his magic loose all the glass in to room shattered as he screamed in rage. That boy, he needed that boy yet he continued to slip through his fingers.

He took a deep breath in and used Occlumency techniques to calm his mind and magic as he repaired everything that had been broken and sent a Patronus to Minerva.

“Harry Potter isn’t on the train, take him off the list for the sorting.”

 

. ~~Defective~~.

 

The door to the compartment opened yet again just as the train set off and they all looked up, surprised at the unexpected visitor. Daphne closed her book, Blaise and Tracy looked up from their game of chess (Tracy was loosing miserably and looked glad for the distraction.) and Harry took off his headphones to see a tall, slim boy with light brown hair and grey-blue eyes looking expectantly at Blaise.

“Theo.” Blaise greeted with a nod.

The boy sighed, “Where have you been?” He asked, clearly annoyed “We were waiting for you for ages, we were almost late.”

Blaise just looked confused, “I was here, I have been for ages.”

“Well you were supposed to be at my house so we could be dropped off together, your mum organised it yesterday evening.”

Blaise’s head his the seat behind him. “I didn’t see my mum today and she clearly didn’t tell the house elves because I wasn’t informed of anything.”

A look of understanding crossed the boy’s, Theo, face “Ah”

“Well,” Blaise started again, “you know Daphne,” he said gesturing to her sitting next to Harry, “but this is Tracy and that’s Harry” he said, yet again gesturing to them in turn, “Guys this is Theodore Nott.”

“But don’t call him Theodore or he’ll slap you.” Daphne cut in, making Tracy giggle and Harry raise an eyebrow at him.

“My father is called Theodore.” He said wincing and making Harry nod in understanding. “Wait, Harry as in Harry Potter?” Theo’s eyes went wide and Harry lifted his fringe from over the forks of lightning that stretched over his forehead and letting it flop down again with a smirk.

“I was wondering when you’d figure it out.”He said, then replacing his headphones over his ears and loosing himself in the music while Blaise quickly explained their summer to Theo

_Never took a punch in the ribcage, sonny, never met a soul who had no shrine, keep this all in your mind and get inside my window._

Daphne squashed up against the door so Theo was next to Harry and could have a more convenient conversation with Blaise, who was opposite the two of them and had returned to crushing Tracy’s attempts at being sneaky with her chess strategy.

Seeing Theo and Harry next to each other as they continued the train journey was interesting to say the least. They were just so impossibly different. Where Harry was small but muscled, with dark hair and intense eyes, Theo was tall and decidedly weedier than Harry even with his lean form, he had light hair and dull eyes, altogether more nondescript than Harry’s distinctive appearance. And yet what Theo didn’t have in natural presence, he made up for in how he conducted himself. He was involved and ready to take action when the need arose, using constant interaction to gather information and create an unmissable presence that couldn’t be recreated. Harry, however, preferred to sit back and watch, constantly calculating new strategies and using his observations to create a plan for any and all situations, always reformulating to counter in new information, he was so quiet about it that it doesn’t matter how distinctive he looked, he just blended right in and you forget he’s there at all. Where Theo wanted to be noticed, Harry wanted to be ignored and Daphne could see the dynamic of a leader and a follower, ready to form but both had the possibility to fill either roll. It would be interesting to see who came out on top.

She was snapped out of her musings when the door slammed open yet again and looked up to see a small, dark skinned girl with big, bushy hair and a book clasped to her chest.

“Has anyone seen a toad? A boy named Neville’s lost one.” She said, her tone screaming superiority in a way that Daphne associated with Draco Malfoy when he was trying to mask his insecurities.

“Sorry but no.” Tracy replied, and Daphne was glad she had because she didn’t think that she would be able to avoid sneering in the girl’s face if she had to reply.

“Oh ok then.” The girl said, and turned to leave when she saw Harry. “Is that muggle tech? Are your parents non magical too? How did they react to magic being real? My parents were really accepting but you see the stories about Harry Potter in the news and it seems like not everyone is. I can’t imagine it really, not wanting to experience magic, how could anyone turn that down?” She finished her rant and looked at Harry expectantly but he didn’t appear to have heard any of it.

Tracy reaches over and tapped the headphones on the ear before gesturing to the girl.

“Oh sorry, what were you saying?” He said, pulling one ear off his head. But the girl just pursed her lips and started muttering about technology ruining human interaction and walking off.

“Oh my god, if she kept talking I think I was gonna pull out a razor blade.” He said as Tracy slid the door shut, giving him a slightly concerned look after how she had found him over the summer.

“But I thought you didn’t hear what she said, your music was on.” She said.

Harry just pulled his phone out of his pocket, “I paused it as soon as she came in, you actually turned it back on when you tapped them, I was just being rude.” He said with a smirk, “She’s going to be very fun to wind up, insecure and yet entitled, my favourite kind of person.” And with that he sat back again and immersed himself in his music, once again lost to the world until the last five minutes of the journey, when they started to pack away their things, not having to get changed as they were all in their robes already, none of them having taken the muggle route to the station.

 

. ~~Defective~~.

 

Minerva looked down from the teachers’ table at all of the students flowing into the halls. She could hear greetings and laughter and speculations about the coming year all throughout the dining room and it warmed her heart to see every one of them looking so happy and carefree and decided to focus on that to distract her from the image of a small, lean boy with high cheekbones and bright green eyes that she may well never see again.

She had spent the past few hours wondering what happened to make him disappear and if anything could have been done of if they were simply far far too late.

Thinking back on their meeting it felt like a knife through the heart to realise that the latter was most likely, after all, she had been asked to tie up his relatives what world were they living in that something like that doesn’t raise a question or even an eyebrow. This boy was the saviour of their world but how could someone so important be left alone with behaviour that warrants those sorts of requests.

The professor was pulled out of her thoughts by a tap on her harm and a gesture to the doors from Albus and she got up to go and prepare the first years for their sorting. She made her way through the hall, out of the doors and exchanged words of thanks with Hagrid for delivering the children safely but as she was giving the standard introductory speech to the eager children in front of her she scanned her eyes over who was there and found herself gawking at one group in particular.

Standing in a small cluster in the back corner of the year group were five heads of hair that stood out from the crowd. They looked so distinguished compared to all of their bright eyed and bushy tailed classmates, not looking unimpressed as the Malfoy heir was attempting to but not clearly overwhelmed as one girl with pigtails was, they were impressed and not bothering to hide it but going about it like adults; carefully taking everything in while still paying polite attention to what she was saying. There was an icy blonde who could have been a Malfoy if not for her bright blue eyes; a shorter girl with deep auburn hair and a soft face; a tall, skinny light brunette boy who’s baby fat had already fallen off his jawline leaving it defined; yet another tall boy but this time far more tanned and a deeper brunette with his hair styled rather like Malfoy’s but altogether more stylistic and classy and finally the short boy with jet black hair and eyes that were no less striking behind the new set of glasses than they were the last pair that had been haunting her every waking moment since the news of his second break for freedom.

Contrary to all predictions, Harry Potter had dodged every reporter and every auror that would have shipped him straight to Dumbledore and St. Mungos and a mind healer, and was looking up at her from only a few meters away, looking far too pleased with himself for it to have all been a coincidence.

Minerva finished her speech with a line about cleaning up their appearances before rushing back into the hall without them.

She could see Albus looking up at her strangely as she rounded the staff table and she leaned down to his ear so she could whisper, “He’s here Albus, Potter is here.”

He looked at her alarmed before whispering back, “Are you sure Minerva?”

“I think I would know Albus, I took the boy to buy his school supplies, I know what he looks like and my eyes may be old but they don’t lie, he is out there.” She hissed at him, waiting while he thought.

“Bring him in with the others, add his name in after the Perks girl where he would be as normal. I will have to call him up to my office on their free day tomorrow.” He decided and Minerva nodded, it wouldn’t do to interrupt the sorting or the feast and draw attention to their mistakes.

She rushed back out of the Great Hall into the entry way and lead the first years up to the front of the room slowly to give them time to take in the spectacular room for the first time and bringing them to a stop before the sorting hat.

As it sang it’s song, she made silent conversation with Albus through pointed looks and subtle jerks of the head and raises of eyebrows until the hat stopped and she began to read names from the list.

The rather excited girl with pigtails she noticed before was the first to go and Minerva took note of the exchanging of money as she went to Hufflepuff.

Next, Susan Bones was another Puff, Terry Boot was the first Ravenclaw and Mandy Brocklehurst was also a Raven. Lavender Brown was her first new Gryffindor and the final coins were exchanged as Millicent Bulstrode became the first Slytherin of the year.

Michael Corner: Ravenclaw

Vincent Crabbe: Slytherin

“Tracy Davis” she called and the smaller girl from Harry’s group came forward to sit on the hay for about two minutes before it decided on “HUFFLEPUFF!”

Justin Finch-Fletchley: Hufflepuff

Seamus Finnigan: Gryffindor

Anthony Goldstein: Ravenclaw

Gregory Goyle: Slytherin

Hermione Granger: Gryffindor

“Daphne Greengrass” the crowd parted for the graceful blonde as she moved forward and the hat sat on her head for a couple of seconds before saying “SLYTHERIN!”

Su Li: Ravenclaw

Neville Longbottom: Gryffindor – Minerva smiled at that one.

Morag McDougal: Ravenclaw

Ernie Macmillan: Hufflepuff

Draco Malfoy: Slytherin – of course.

Lilian Moon: Slytherin

“Theodore Nott” the light haired boy made a face at the tanned one on Harry’s right as he moved forward so the hat could place him in “SLYTHERIN!”

Pansy Parkinson: Slytherin

Padma Patil: Ravenclaw

Parvati Patil: Gryffindor – an interesting occurrence, for twins to be split.

Sally-Anne Perks: Hufflepuff

“Harry Potter” The Hall went silent for a moment before he moved through the crowd and everyone started whispering and clamouring for a look at the boy-who-could-evade-an-auror-task-force and the cause of all the latest gossip. Even his own classmates were enraptured and they were right next to him. As he got to the front of the hall he sat on the stool and the hat was silent for a very long time. He was the longest to sort yet at at five minutes he became the first hat-stall of the year and it took yet another two minutes for the hat to shout out “HUFFLEPUFF!”

The hall was silent for a heartbeat as he got up to go to his table. No one really knew what to expect, there were those (and Minerva had to admit she was one) who thought he would be in Gryffindor like his parents, but after the ordeal over the summer many thought Slytherin and now he really had thrown a cog in the works of people’s minds but suddenly the Puffs were screaming louder than ever and he had sat comfortably next to Davis like it was where he was born to be and no one could question it.

Soon the noise died down and she could continue.

Zacharias Smith: Hufflepuff – as expected.

Dean Thomas: Gryffindor

Lisa Turpin: Ravenclaw

Ronald Weasley: Gryffindor -She may have despaired slightly at that one.

Finally the only one left was “Blaise Zabini”, the last of Harry’s friends. He also got some whispers due to the fact his mother seems to have a new husband every two years and the hat takes a minute to think before deciding that the last student of the year to be sorted would go into “SLYTHERIN!”

Nine for Slytherin, eight for Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw and seven for Gryffindor. A rather even spread, although a shame that Potter’s group was split up but tensions between Slytherin and Hufflepuff have always been low so perhaps they won’t be completely divided.

She would just have to hope that Hogwarts can make Harry a bit happier that he was at home. Though it saddened her that hope was all she could do.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Songs In Order Of Appearance Chap 6  
> Title:Accident Without Emergency - Biffy Clyro  
> This Life - Vampire Weekend  
> Where Did All The Love Go - Kasabian


End file.
